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LIFE AND LETTERS OF 

Thomas Kilby Smith 

BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL UNITED STATES VOLUNTEERS 
I 820- I 887 



By his Son 



y 



WALTER GEORGE SMITH 



WITH PORTRAITS 



G. P- PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

^be IRnicherbocher press 

1898 




TWO COPIES V?^-^'£^^'^^ 






Copyright, 1897 

BY 

WALTER GEORGE SMITH 



Zbc Itnfclierboclsec ipcese, View ]t;or!t 

■4. 






To THE Companions 

OF 

THE MILITARY ORDER OF THE LOYAL LEGION 

OF 

THE UNITED STATES 

This Narrative of the Life 

OF THEIR 

Fellow Soldier 
IS Dedicated. 



PREFACK. 



AFTER a lapse of ten years since the death of my father, 
I venture to give this work to the public. 

I am impelled by two thoughts : first, a filial desire to pay 
tribute to his memory, and second to add to the literature of 
the Civil War this collection of his letters. The personal 
consideration taken alone might possibly not constitute sufl5- 
cient ground for the publication, but it has seemed to me, 
that as a contribution to the records of the time, the letters 
ought not to be withheld. 

General Smith's career as a soldier was a type of that of 
many others whose impressions have been published, but I 
doubt if any collection of letters has been made, descriptive 
of the scenes in the theatre of war in which he moved, so full 
and graphic as those written by him, marked as they were 
by the frankness that characterizes a family correspondence. 
His judgment of events was often inaccurate, and his state- 
ments at times doubtless exaggerated by the excitement of 
the moment ; but the conclusions he formed of the leading 
actors with whom he was associated will be found to have 
been for the most part borne out by the event. 

Interest in books of this kind must of necessity become 
less and less intense as later events in the world's history 
claim our attention. While there are many thousands still 
surviving who bore arms in the Civil War, almost all of the 
leaders have passed away, and the veterans of every rank 
are rapidly giving place to men who know of the great con- 
flict only as a tradition. Still, so long as history is read, 
men will be interested in the story of this period ; and the 
names of the great men on both sides will never be erased 
from the roll of fame. 



vi Preface 

Althougli these letters do not touch on the causes of the 
war, they do show in graphic language the heroism of those 
who fought, the hardships they endured, and the tenacity of 
the American people in the support of the fundamental prin- 
ciples of free government. 

I have thought it wise to print a few extracts from early 
letters and to continue the series until after my father's re- 
tirement from the consulship at Panama, though these par- 
ticular letters were not strictly within the purview of the 
work. 

If I have been mistaken in my estimate of the value of this 
work to the public at large, I feel confident at least that I 
shall give pleasure to many an old soldier who will read in 
the description of the adventures of his fellow-soldier a 
counterpart of what happened to himself. As he recalls the 
memory of the stirring daj^s of his military life, his patriotism 
and zeal for American institutions will grow stronger and 
firmer, and his faith in the permanence of a form of govern- 
ment that could outlive such a trial will gain new force. 

Walter George Smith. 

PHII.ADELPHIA, Dec. 14, 1897. 




CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Memoir • . . . . i 

LrETTERS 167 

A Study of Character . . . .■ . . 467 
Index 477 




LIST OF PORTRAITS 



PAGE 

Frontispiece 
. 167 
. 180 



Thomas Kii,by Smith, {Photogravure) 
Elizabeth B. Smith, {^Photogravure) 
Coi^ONEiv Thomas Kilby Smith 

CAMP DENNISON, 1 862. 

CoiONEL Thomas Kilby Smith , , . . 236 

MEMPHIS, 1862. 

General W. T. Sherman and Officers . . 242 

MEMPHIS, 1862. 

Major-General U. S. Grant and Officers . 342 

NEW ORI^RANS, 1863. 

Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby Smith . . 378 

WASHINGTON, 1 864, 




LIFE 

OF 

THOMAS KILBY SMITH 



ABOUT the year 1752, there came to America from Ger- 
many a young physician, Doctor Godfried Christian 
Schmidt. He had been educated at Ulm, though his native 
place was Wolfenbiittel, a small town in Brunswick. It is a 
tradition well attested by relics, that he was connected with 
the army of Great Britain and her colonies in the French and 
Indian War. After that conflict was over, he settled at 
Newburyport, Massachusetts, where, on the 27th of March, 
1764, he married Hannah Calef, a daughter of Joseph Calef 
of Boston and on her mother's side descended from a Maine 
family, she having been a grand-daughter of Dominicus Jor- 
dan, called the ' ' Indian Fighter, ' ' who was one of the early 
settlers in the neighborhood of Casco Bay.' Dr. Schmidt 
attained great eminence in his profession, and died at the 
age of sixty years on the i6th of March, 1791. The young- 
est of the seven children of Dr. Schmidt was George, born in 
Boston in 1782. In early life this son was bred to the sea, 
and became so proficient as a mariner that he rose to the com- 
mand of ships and made many voyages. In his young man- 
hood perhaps the most important commission to the master 
of a sailing vessel was to trade to the northwest coast of 
America and thence to China and from China home by way 

' The Trelawny Papers, p. 433. 



2 Thomas Kilby Smith 

of Europe, — thus circumnavigating the globe. Captain 
Smith not only made this voyage, but visited the northwest 
coast of South America and led for many years an adventur- 
ous life. At one time he was taken by the Chinese and held 
in prison ; at another, by the Spanish settlers of South Amer- 
ica, from whom he escaped and made his way across the 
Isthmus of Panama, enduring many hardships. After re- 
tiring from the life of a sailor, he was married at Christ 
Church in Boston on the 31st of January, 1817, to Eliza 
Bicker Walter, then in her seventeenth year. Miss Wal- 
ter came of a distinguished family of New England lineage 
on both sides of her house. Her father could trace among 
his lineal ancestors the I^yndes, father and son, the first 
and second chief justices of Massachusetts ; John Eliot, 
called the ' ' Apostle to the Indians, ' ' who translated the 
Bible into their tongue ; the Rev. Increase Mather, father of 
the famous Cotton Mather, and the sixth President of Har- 
vard College, and by intermarriage her family were related 
to many others notable in New England history. The first 
surviving child of this marriage was Thomas Kilby Smith, 
bom at Dorchester near Boston on the 23d of September, 1820. 
His mother gave him the name of Thomas Kilby Jones, in 
honor of her great uncle, a descendant on the maternal side 
of that family of Kilbj^ whose name is perpetuated in Boston 
by the well-known Kilby Street. When, however, the son 
thus baptized grew to man's estate, he discarded the name of 
Jones ' ; not from any lack of respect to his mother's choice, 

' Thomas Kilbj^ Jones was a grandson of Thomas Kilby, an amusing 
account of whom appears in a letter from the late General Samuel J. 
Bridge, of December 3, i860, to Mrs. George Smith, as follows : 

I have been reading Dealings with the Dead, by a Sexton of the 
Old School, L. M. Sargent, who you will recollect built a house on 
the rear of R. G. Amory's Elm Hill, not far from Uncle Jones' seat. 
In chapter 136, he speaks of Thos. Kilby for whom Uncle Jones was 
named, and in turn your son. "Thos. Kilby was a gentleman of 
education, graduated at Harvard in 1723, and died in 1770, and ac- 
cording to Pemberton, published essays in prose and verse. Not long 
ago a gentleman enquired of me if I ever heard that Peter Faneuil 
had a wooden leg : and related the following amusing story, which he 
received from his collateral ancestor, John Page, who graduated at 



Memoir 3 

or to his distinguished namesake, but because he thought 
the name of Kilby would be sufl&ciently distinguishing with- 
out adding that of Jones to the then, as now, too common 
patronymic Smith. For nine years Captain Smith and his 
wife made their residence in or near Boston. During a por- 
tion of this time he resided in the ancient town of Quincy 
not far from Boston, or at least his family made long visits 
to relatives there. The widow of Dr. Schmidt died in Bos- 
ton in 1832 at the age of 90 years. She made her home in 
an interesting house said to be the oldest in Quincy, and 
still standing, the comfortable homestead of Mr. Hull 
Adams and his sister Elizabeth, the children of Judge Sam- 
uel Adams, the brother of John Quincy Adams and the son 
of John Adams, the second President of the United States. 
Tradition tells of the flaxen-haired child who played in the 

Harvard in 1765, and died in 1825, aged 81. Thos. Kilby was an 
unthrifty and rather whimsical gentleman. Being without property 
and employment, he retired to Nova Scotia. There he made a will, 
for his amusement, having, in reality, nothing to bequeath. He left 
liberal sums to a number of religious, philanthropic, and literary in- 
stitutions ; his sons to a worthy clergyman, as he appeared not to 
have any ; his body to a surgeon of his acquaintance, ' excepting as 
hereinafter mentioned ' ; his eyes, which were very good, to a blind 
relative ; his heart to an aged spinster ; and the choice of his legs he 
bequeathed to his friend, Peter Faneuil." 

Sargent says, " upon enquiry of the oldest surviving relative of Peter 
Faneuil, I found that nothing was known of the wooden leg. But a 
day or two after, a highly respectable and aged citizen, attracted by 
the articles in the Tra?iscript, informed me that his father, born in 
1727, told him that he had seen Peter Faneuil in his garden, and that 
on one foot he wore a high-heeled shoe. This probably gave occasion 
to the considerate bequest of Thomas Kilby. The will, coming to 
the knowledge of Peter Faneuil, he was so much pleased with the 
humor of it that, probably, having a knowledge of the testator before, 
he sent for him and made him his commercial agent at Canso, Nova 
Scotia, and so enabled him to live like a gentleman all the rest of his 
life." The story is worth keeping in the family, which induces me to 
send it to you. Uncle Jones inherited much of Tom Kilb3-'s humor. 
You will recollect that Uncle Jones often spoke of his relatives in 
Nova Scotia, but how he came to be named for Thos. Kilby I never 
understood. If the dear old man was alive how he would laugh at 
this story. . . . 



4 Thomas Kilby Smith 

garden or rode his pony about Constitution Hill at the foot 
of which the little homestead stands ; and there in later 
life when the child had become a war-worn soldier he was 
wont occasionally to return and renew the inspirations of 
his earlier days.' 

' In a letter to the late George D. Budd, Esq., of Philadelphia, who 
had written for The Penn. Monthly a review of the then recently 
published life of John Adams, the subject of this narrative speaks of 
his relations with the Adams family as follows : 

"Your critique upon the life of John Adams, begun by his son, 
completed by his grandson, I have read with a great interest that you 
will readily appreciate when I tell you that the earliest years of my 
life were closely associated with the society that surrounded and was 
identified with the rise and progress of the family illustrated through 
four generations by the names of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, 
Charles Francis Adams, and John Quincy Adams the younger, the 
last, but not least of the quartet, a lawyer, orator, statesman, publicist. 
Three days before the death of John Adams, I sat upon his knee under 
the shade of the branching oaks his own hand had raised from the 
acorn. The most impressive scene of my childhood was the burial 
of his body. The funeral cortege I remember as an event of yester- 
day, my father lifting me in his arms to view the face of the dead as 
it lay cofl&ned in the hearse. John Quincy Adams I knew as a farmer 
better than a statesman, though I have heard him in his happiest 
vein when old enough to appreciate his powers. But I have seen him 
more frequently in his shirt sleeves driving behind his oxen or coming 
from the marshes with his gun on his shoulder, or returning from his 
morning bath in the ocean. The frequent recipient of that sort of 
hospitality most grateful to a child from Mrs. Adams, for I was free 
of the house, I can bear ample testimony to her thorough accomplish- 
ment in that art so often neglected by the ladies of the period who 
cannot vie with her genius for conversation, literature, and fascina- 
tion in the drawing-room." 

The family of Thomas Kilby Smith were descended on his mother's 
side from the family of Thomas Boylston, and were therefore dis- 
tantly related to the Adams family. John Adams, the second Presi- 
dent of the United States, was a grandson of Thomas Boylston, his 
granddaughter Susannah having married John Adams, the father of 
the statesman. Susannah Boylston was the daughter of Peter, a son 
of Thomas. Rebecca, a daughter of Thomas Bojdston, married 
William Abbot, of Brookline. Their daughter Rebecca married Rev. 
Nehemiah "Walter, whose great-granddaughter was the mother of 
Thomas Kilby Smith. A relationship so distant was not known to 
him, but his reference to this family makes it of interest in this con- 
nection. 



Memoir e 

Failing in business and attracted by what he had heard of 
the nsmg importance of the then metropolis of the West 
Captam Smith removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, about the year 
'f ?: ^ ^"""^^ vicissitudes he finally made his home at a 

short distance from the city, in Coleraine Township, Hamil- 
ton County. Before his removal from Boston another son 
was born, and a large family grew up in the Ohio home, there 
being m all three sons and two daughters surviving to adult 

^f ^i, ^r^T/,r^'' ^^^' '^ ^' °^"^^^"' ^° ^^y- tlie civilization 
of the Ohio Valley was far less perfect than at this date when 
It teems with a busy and prosperous population. The virgin 
forests still covered the hills in many places ; the manner 
of living was simple ; there was little wealth, and the de- 
scendants of the pioneers and the survivors of those hardy 
adventurers themselves, had scarcely perfected the foun- 
dations of the young commonwealth. Manual labor was 
not held in disrepute, and it was a lifelong boast of the 
eldest son of George Smith that he had gained health and 
strength and skill by battling with the adverse forces of 
nature. There was at that time, however, no lack of intel- 
lectual activity in Cincinnati : many strong and able men in 
various walks of life had cast their lot in that community 
and opportunities were not wanting for education, both 
academic and professional, to ambitious youth. As he grew 
in years, young Smith developed an active mind and a well- 
nigh perfect physique. He had inherited from his German 
ancestors the ruddy complexion and the blonde type that dis- 
tinguishes them in so eminent a degree. Proud of his physi- 
cal prowess, he was a swift runner, a splendid swimmer and 
an accomplished horseman. One of his favorite stories was 
the description of a race between himself and some com- 
pamons of twenty-five miles from a neighboring town to the 
city of Cincinnati, which he had made in an incredibly short 
space of time. It is said that he swam the Ohio River with 
his clothes on, and was daunted by no obstacle in boyish 
feats of strength. One of the notable institutions in Cincin- 
nati at that early date was the old Woodward High School 
and there he was a pupil with other lads, many of whom be- 
came distinguished in later life : such men as Stanley Mat- 



6 ThoTfias Kilby Smith 

thews, Geo. H. Pendleton, John B. Groesbeck, George E. 
Pugh, and Daniel Drake Henrie. Subsequently, Ormsby 
M. Mitchel came to Cincinnati, fresh from his studies 
at West Point and his militar}^ training in the army. He 
set up a military school, and his friendship for Captain 
George Smith led him to take a special interest in Thomas 
Kilby, who became one of his favorite pupils. From Mitchel 
the youth received a training that in future life was of great 
advantage to him. His attention was directed to the science 
and practice of civil engineering, and as Mitchel himself was 
called upon from that time to make surveys, he appointed 
him upon his staff of assistants. Together they made the 
preliminary surveys for the first railroad in the State of 
Ohio, and through Mitchel's influence young Smith was 
attached to an expedition in Wisconsin in 1838, where he 
had much experience of border life. After returning from 
that expedition, being then in his nineteenth year, the young 
engineer made a visit to his parents' relatives in Boston, 
where he was received with cordial admiration. On his re- 
turn after a brief sojourn in his parents' home, he determined 
to adopt the legal profession, and notwithstanding the en- 
treaties of his father's friends who looked upon the relation- 
ship as likely to shadow his future success, he was placed in 
the law ofl&ce of Salmon P. Chase, who was then in the suc- 
cessful practice of his profession in partnership with Flamen 
Ball. It was owing to no personal defect in the character or 
the professional standing of the future Chief Justice of the 
United States, that Captain Smith's friends urged him not to 
put his son under such preceptorship, but because of the un- 
popularity of Mr. Cha.se on political grounds. At that time, 
the feeling in Ohio in opposition to interference with slavery 
was very strong, yet Salmon P. Chase was an ardent and 
uncompromising opponent of slavery, and did not hesitate to 
denounce it both publicly and privately.' 

' In after years, when the burning questions that divided men in 
those days had been settled, and the small minoritj' had been changed 
into an overwhelming and triumphant majority, and the great Chief 
Justice had passed to his reward, his remains were transferred to their 
present resting-place in Spring Grove Cemetery near Cincinnati. In 
the course of an eloquent oration pronounced by his friend, the Hon- 



Memoir 7 

It was not because ot any special sympathy with the aboli- 
tionists, probably, that Captain Smith determined to place 
his son under the preceptorship of Mr. Chase ; but having 
determined that he possessed the qualifications, and knowing 
the nobility of his character, he was not deterred by his un- 
popularity. In the office of Messrs. Chase & Ball, the usual 
course of law study was pursued by the young man until, in 
the year 1846, he was admitted to the bar of Hamilton 
County. After his admission to the bar, Mr. Smith re- 
mained in the ofiice of Messrs. Chase & Ball for a number 
of years, engaged in the active practice of his profession. 
He was, however, of a restless temperament, and by nature 
averse to a sedentary life. He would often go to the woods 
and fields on hunting expeditions, of which he was extremely 
fond. On one occasion he accepted an invitation from an- 
other young lawyer, afterwards known to fame as Donn 
Piatt, to accompany him to his father's home in Logan 
County. Donn Piatt was a son of Judge Benjamin M. Piatt, 
one of the earliest pioneers of the West. After the usual 
vicissitudes of a pioneer's life in Illinois and Kentucky, 
Judge Piatt had fixed his home at a beautiful and romantic 
spot near the geographical centre of the State of Ohio, called 
" Mac-o-cheek," after the name of an Indian tribe, who but 
a few years before had lived there. This name in the Indian 
vernacular, is said to mean " smiling valley," and the name 
was surely appropriate, for its aspect was so beautiful, ro- 

orable George Hoadly, on that occasion, there occurs the following 
passage : 

" What made him content to be the best hated man in Cincinnati ; 
to bear opprobrium, to stand (as he once did) by the side of General 
Thomas Kilby Smith and meet volleys of stale eggs, while he calmly 
continued his appeal for justice to the slave? He was not helped in 
his work by malice, or hatred, or spite,— the stimulus of little, mean 
men. When I made his acquaintance his most intimate friend was a 
Kentucky slave owner. He made war on the system, not the man ; 
and knowing full well that any life, his own even, caught within the 
folds of slavery, must submit to the crushing of its free thought, and 
its errors be largely, if not wholly, excused by the impossibility of 
escaping the control of circumstance, education, interests, surround- 
ings. What helped him,— yes, made him,— was this : he walked 
with God." 



8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

mantic and serene as to suggest the happiest thoughts. 
Through it flowed a little stream of the same name, mean- 
dering through woods and across broad prairies until it lost 
itself in the Mad River near the point where the town of 
West lyiberty now stands. To this favorite spot where Judge 
Piatt had built himself a plain but substantial pioneer's house 
of hewn logs, situated upon a rising knoll and facing across 
the savannas towards the west, the young man came in the 
autumn of 1847. It can be well imagined that the advent 
of the handsome young stranger accompanied by his beauti- 
ful white pointer dog made some sensation in the Judge's 
family, and not the least of those affected by it was his 
granddaughter Elizabeth Budd McCullough, a daughter of 
Dr. William Budd McCullough of Asbury, Warren County, 
New Jersey,' who had been taken in infancy after her 
mother's death to live amid those romantic scenes. The im- 
pressions made upon her were reciprocated in the heart of the 
visitor. After another year Mr. Smith returned again to the 
' ' smiling valley, ' ' and found his bride in Miss McCullough. 
They were married on the 2d of May, 1848, in the old log 
church which had been erected by Mrs. Piatt not far from 
the family residence, by the Right Rev. J. B. Purcell, D.D., 
then Roman Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Cincinnati. 
Captain George Smith and his wife were Protestants, the men 
of the Walter family, from which the latter had sprung, being 
almost in an hereditary line Church of England or Congre- 
gationalist ministers. The Piatts were also originally of the 
strongest Protestant stock, being an old French Huguenot 
family; but the Judge's wife had become a convert to Cathol- 
icism, and had educated her family in that faith. The usual 
pledges having been given by Mr. Smith, the good Bishop 

' Dr. McCullough was a son of Col. William McCullough, a veteran 
of the Revolutionary War, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of 
Warren County, New Jersey, and a great landed proprietor at Asbury. 
Colonel McCullough was an early convert to Methodism, and his son 
a lifelong member of that denomination. The early death of his 
young wife made the doctor consent to the education and practical 
adoption of his two daughters by their grandmother ; but though 
living apart from them during all his life, his affection remained 
undiminished until his death, which occurred in California in 1868. 



Memoir 9 

did not hesitate to perform the ceremony. Mrs. Smith was 
born on the i8th of June, 1827. She had inherited from 
both parents a beauty of distinctively brunette type. She 
had been a delicate girl, but was gifted with an unusually 
intelligent mind. Her life in the quiet seclusion of the 
country had afforded her opportunities for the development 
of latent tastes in poetry and music, which made her most 
attractive. With her young sister Arabella, who died in 
early youth, she was already recognized in her family circle, 
as having graces not often combined, with feelings sensitive 
to all that was beautiful in nature or art. She gave her 
hand with romantic devotion to her young lover, and during 
his varied career she was ever devoted to his best interests 
and those of her children. The quiet influence of her well- 
nigh perfect life is their best heritage, her teaching their 
earliest instruction in the way of truth and unselfish service 
tow^ards God and man. 

After his marriage Mr. Smith continued in the practice of 
his profession in Cincinnati with varying success until 1853, 
when he was appointed to a responsible position in the 
department of the Postmaster- General at Washington. In 
politics he was what was known in those days as a " Free 
Soil Democrat," and attained sufiicient prominence in his 
party to merit recognition. At that time Franklin Pierce was 
President of the United States, and James Campbell of Phila- 
delphia, Postmaster-General. A warm friendship sprang up 
between the President, Judge Campbell and the young man 
which was maintained during the remainder of their lives. 
He made his residence in Washington until the year 1856, 
when, towards the close of the Pierce administration, he was 
honored by the appointment of United States Marshal for 
the Southern District of Ohio. Resigning his position in the 
Postmaster- General's Department, he removed his family 
back to Cincinnati, and proceeded to familiarize himself with 
the duties of his new position. But the dominant forces of 
Ohio politics during the administration of President Buchanan 
were not in accord with his views and his appointment failed 
of confirmation in the Senate ; so that he found himself in 
the position of so many who have relied upon the Govern- 



lo Thomas Kilby Smith 

merit's service as a means of livelihood, suddenly out of oflSce 
with the responsibility of a young and growing family, and 
his professional life marred by the years lost as a salaried 
official. Soon afterwards, however, he was appointed Deputy 
Clerk of the Court of Hamilton County, and devoted himself 
to the duties of that office for the next four years. His love 
of excitement and warm interest in public affairs which 
seemed to be almost a part of his nature, prevented him from 
becoming merely a routine official. He had the friendship 
and confidence, young as he was, of many of the most distin- 
guished and successful statesmen and politicians of that day. 
He had served on the National Democratic Committee during 
a portion of President Pierce's administration, and found his 
relaxation to a great extent in the excitement attendant 
upon public life. He had formed the personal friendship 
and entertained the highest admiration for Stephen A. 
Douglas, at that time Senator from Illinois, and as the 
gathering clouds portended the conflict that culminated in 
the disruption of the Democratic Party in i860, he took his 
stand with Douglas and his associates. After the election 
of Mr. I/incoln and his inauguration in the Spring of 1861, 
his mind was made up, as was that of his great political leader, 
to support Mr. I^incoln's administration, sinking all minor 
differences in the determination to maintain the integrity of 
the Federal Union. 

On the ist of June, 1861, he went to Washington to offer 
his services to the Government as a soldier. While he was 
in Washington the Battle of Bull Run was fought, and he 
witnessed the scenes of confusion and dismay subsequent to 
that discouraging conflict. Returning, he paid a visit to his 
venerable mother, then living in New York, and while 
there made some further study of the military situation. On 
his return to Cincinnati he found that his wife's uncle, 
Abram S. Piatt, had been commissioned a colonel of volun- 
teers and had undertaken the task of recruiting three regi- 
ments at Camp Dennison near Cincinnati ; but before his 
purpose was attained he had been ordered to the field with 
his own command, the 37th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry. 
This left a few hundred men recruited for the 54th Ohio 



Memoir 1 1 

Volunteer Infantry without a commanding ofl&cer, and 
through the influence of Senator Chase, his old preceptor in 
the law, and Governor Dennison, Mr. Smith received the 
commission of lyieutenant-Colonel of the 54th Ohio Volunteer 
Infantry on the 9th of September, 1861. He went at once 
to his place of duty. Excepting the education he had re- 
ceived more than twenty years before from Professor Mitchel, 
he had nothing but his instincts and such opportunities as 
the busy life into which he had plunged permitted, to fit 
himself for the command. His courage and hope were high, 
but he had some doubt as to his ability to recruit and 
organize his regiment to its full strength and drill it for 
active duty. He lost no time, however, in hesitation, but 
turned his back upon the pursuits of civil life and leaving 
his young and delicate wife to direct the fortunes of herself 
and five children, one but an infant in arms, he went to his 
patriotic work with the same spirit of zeal and hope that 
distinguished so many hundreds of thousands of his fellow- 
soldiers in those memorable days. On the 31st of October, 
1 86 1, he was mustered into the service of the United States 
as Colonel of his regiment. 

The war had now begun in real earnest. The shock and 
surprise of the defeat of the Union Army at Bull Run had 
served the valuable purpose of awakening the North and 
West to a full realization of the determination of the South- 
ern leaders to disrupt the Union and found a new confederacy 
whose corner stone would be human slavery. The lusty 
youth of Ohio needed but little encouragement to rally about 
the standards that were set up in different parts of the State, 
and the 54th Regiment, recruited for the most part from the 
country districts, gradually found its ranks filling, and under 
the energetic care of its colonel, became a well-disciplined body 
of men. The uniform of the Zouaves was adopted, and daily 
upon the level plains upon which Camp Dennison was 
pitched, the regiment was drilled in the manual of arms. 
The writer can recall his experience as a child while visiting 
at the Camp, the soldierly appearance of the long line as it 
stood in front of his father, and hear in imagination the tones 
of his sonorous voice as he gave the commands. He can see 



12 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the long line break into companies and remember his feeling 
of elation as he led the regiment back to its quarters when 
the afternoon drill had closed. During all of the autumn of 
1 86 1, and until the i6th of February, 1862, Colonel Smith 
devoted himself to the duties of preparation for the trials 
that were to follow. Mounted upon a magnificent chestnut 
stallion, he rode about the Camp during the mornings, and 
until late in the day was occupied with the arduous duties 
of his new responsibility. 

At last orders came to take the field ; the 54th was directed 
to proceed to Paducah, Kentuck}^ and report to Major- 
General Halleck at St. IvOuis by telegraph. Promptly and 
without confusion, the command was transported to Cincin- 
nati and placed on transport steamboats. On the 19th of 
February, 1862, the Colonel reported to Brig. -Gen. W. T. 
Sherman, then commanding at Paducah, and by his orders 
was assigned to the 2d Brigade of the Fifth Division, Col. 
David Stuart of the 55th Illinois Infantry commanding. At 
that time General Sherman was a brigadier-general of volun- 
teers, and Colonel of the 13th Infantry of the Regular Army. 
The little town of Paducah is situated on the Ohio River. 
The 5th Division was made up of four brigades, and each 
brigade composed of three regiments. This was the first 
large command exercised by General Sherman, and as the 
soldiers composing it afterwards became veterans and serv^ed 
with great distinction, it will be of interest to give the com- 
position and names of the commanding officers. They were 
almost all more or less distinguished in the old Army of the 
Tennessee, an organization that will go down to history with 
a record untarnished and illustrious. The first brigade con- 
sisted of the 6th Iowa, Col. J. A. McDowell ; the 40th Illi- 
nois, Col. Stephen G. Hicks ; the 46th Ohio, Col. Thomas 
Worthington, and the Morton Battery, Captain Frederick 
Behr. The second brigade : the 55th Illinois, Col. David 
Stuart ; the 54th Ohio, Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, and the 
71st Ohio, Col. Rodney Mason. The third brigade : the 
77th Ohio, Col. Jesse Hildebrand ; the 53d Ohio, Col. J. J. 
Appier, and the 57th Ohio, Col. William Mungen. The 
fourth brigade : the 72d Ohio, Col. R. P. Buckland ; the 



Memoir 1 3 

48tli Ohio, Col. Peter J. Sullivan ; and the 70th Ohio, Col. 
J. R. Cockerill. 

Of these regiments almost all, both officers and men, were 
without actual military experience. In his report of the 
battle of Shiloh, General Sherman says : 

" My division was made up of regiments perfectly new, 
nearly all having received their muskets for the first time at 
Paducah. None of them had ever been under fire or beheld 
heavy columns of enemy bearing down on them. The divi- 
sion embarked on steamboats on March 8th and proceeded 
down the Ohio River to the Tennessee and up that stream 
arriving at Fort Henry March 9th, and at Savannah, Ten- 
nessee, March nth." 

On the 14th, General Sherman disembarked his command 
at the mouth of Yellow Creek on the Tennessee River and 
sent cavalry to destroy the Charleston and Memphis Rail- 
road ; but the heavy rains had so swollen the streams that 
the country was impassable. On the i6th, the command 
dropped down to Pittsburg Landing, and disembarked, and 
again attempted the destruction of the railroad, cavalry en- 
countering a force which was routed, but it failed in its 
undertaking, and on the 19th of March the division went 
into camp on ground extending from Purdy to the Hamburg 
Road, two and a half miles from the Landing. 

The history of the battle of Shiloh is one that has provoked 
no little controversy. A glance at the map of the battlefield 
shows that it was enclosed by the Tennessee River at the rear, 
a little stream called Snake Creek at the right, flowing into 
the Tennessee River, and Lick Creek on the left, flowing into 
the same river. The Army of the Tennessee, of which Gen- 
eral Sherman's division was a part, was composed of six 
separate divisions, all under command of Major-Gen. U. S. 
Grant. After making a reconnaisance in force towards Pea 
Ridge, ten miles towards Corinth, on the 24th of March, the 
troops lay in camp without event of special moment until the 
6th of April when the great battle began. The army of the 
Tennessee mustered nearly forty-five thousand men, and as 
they have been described by an eye-witness, they ' ' mounted 
guard daily, devoured their rations and slept in peace. . . . 



14 Thomas Kilby Smith 

All was security beneath ttie shadow of the old church and 
the nodding grasses that margined the streams hard by. No 
breastwork faced toward the foe ; no rifle-pit told the story 
of an army alert, active, and conscious. . . . Vernal 
days shed languor over musketeer and cannoneer." ' 

At Corinth, a commercial centre of considerable importance 
situated in the State of Mississippi, a few days march from 
Pittsburg I^anding, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson was in com- 
mand of the Confederate Army of the Mississippi. He had 
formed the plan of concentrating every available soldier of 
the Confederacy and by sudden marches falling upon Grant's 
army at Pittsburg lyanding and crushing it before the arrival 
of the Army of the Ohio, which was making its way steadily 
to form a junction with Grant. Johnson summoned his 
troops from all parts of the South, and on the 2d of April 
issued the following order : 

' ' Soldiers of the Army of the Mississippi : 

' ' I have put you in motion to offer battle to the invaders 
of your country. With the resolution and disciplined valor 
becoming men fighting, as you are, for all worth living or 
dying for, you can but march to a decisive victory over the 
agrarian mercenaries sent to subjugate and despoil you of 
your liberties, property, and honor. Remember the precious 
stake involved ; remember the dependence of your mothers, 
your wives, your sisters, and your children on the result ; 
remember the fair, broad, abounding land, the happy homes 
and ties that will be desolated by defeat. 

' ' The eyes and hopes of eight millions of people rest upon 
you. You are expected to show yourselves worthy of 3'our 
race and lineage ; worthy of the women of the South, whose 
noble devotion in this war has never been exceeded in any 
time. With such incentives to brave deeds and with the 
trust that God is with us, your general will lead you confi- 
dently to the combat, assured of success. ' ' ^ 

Generals Grant and Sherman have been criticised with un- 
sparing severity because they made no apparent preparation 
for the attack that was impending. It will be for military 

' Col. John A. Cockerill, The Surprise at Shiloh. 
' War Records, vol. x., series i, part ii., p. 233. 



Memoir 1 5 

critics to say whether or not their conduct in this respect was 
open to censure. How many mistakes have been made by 
successful generals as well as men in every profession, history 
does not always tell. But certain it is, that the commanders 
of troops on both sides during the American Civil War learned 
much from experience as that great conflict progressed, and 
it may well have been that in later years different dispositions 
would have been made. General Sherman himself has said : 
" For days we knew the enemy was in our front, but the 
nature of the ground and his superior strength and cavalry 
prevented us from breaking through the veil of their approach 
to ascertain their true strength and purpose. But as soldiers 
we were prepared at all times to receive an attack, and even 
to make one if circumstances warranted it. On that morning 
our pickets had been driven in, and our main guard was 
forced back to the small valley in our front. All our regi- 
ments of infantry, battalions of artillery, and squadrons of 
cavalry were prepared. I myself, their commander, was 
fully prepared, right along the line of this very regiment 
(the 57th Ohio, Colonel Mungen) and so was in position in 
front of their camp and looking to a cause-way across the 
small creek by which the enemy was expected to approach. 
. . . It is simply ridiculous to talk about a surprise. ' ' ' 

In a letter of General Halleck to Secretary Stanton, under 
date of June 15, 1864,'' the former states : 

" It is not my object in this communication to offer any 
comments on the battle beyond the remark that the impres- 
sion which at one time seemed to have been received by this 
department, — that our forces were surprised on the morning 
of the 6th, is entirely erroneous. I am satisfied from a pa- 
tient and careful inquiry and investigation that all our troops 
were notified of the enemy's approach some time before the 
battle commenced. ' ' And General McPherson has said ' : 
' ' It was well known the enemy was approaching our lines 
and there had been more or less skirmishing for three days 
preceding the battle. ' ' 

' Letter to Hon. B. Stanton of June lo, 1862. 
' War Records^ vol. x., part, i., series i., p. 99. 
'"Ibid., p. 181. 



1 6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

History has recorded how Sidney Johnson fell upon the 
Union lines in the early morning of Sunday the 6th of April, 
1862 ; how the fiery legions of the South hurled themselves 
through the underbrush and into the very camps of the Union 
army; how the new and but partially disciplined troops of 
the West and Northwest met the shock ; how some thou- 
sands of stragglers, losing courage, fled from the field crying 
all was lost, and betook themselves to the I^anding where 
they huddled under the protection of the gunboats on the 
Tennessee River close to Pittsburg lyanding, where the 
Lexington and Tyler, commanded by Captains Gwinn and 
Shirk, U. S. N., were stationed ; how the commanding gen- 
eral. Grant, took his departure from Savannah, and hastened 
to the field, where he arrived at ten o'clock in the morning, 
and how through all that terrible day, the Union army, 
fighting inch by inch, gradually gave way before the on- 
slaught of the enemy. But it is with the conduct of the 
Second Brigade of the First Division that this narrative is 
especially concerned. In order to understand the operations 
of this command, it must be borne in mind that between the 
Union lines and those of the enemy was a dense forest bor- 
dered by ravines. Sherman's division was not large enough 
to occupy the whole line and he placed the First, Third and 
Fourth Brigades on his right, and the Second Brigade on the 
extreme left, and in this position they were on Sunday morn- 
ing. The interval between the Second and Third Brigades 
was occupied by the division of Gen. B. M. Prentiss. Gen- 
eral Sherman's division was stationed to the right of the 
Union line ; toward the left was that of McClernand, and 
towards his left was that of Prentiss ; to the rear of Prentiss 
was the division of Hurlbut, and to his right that of Gen. C. 
F. Smith, then commanded by Gen. W. H. L. Wallace, 
owing to the severe illness of General Smith which subse- 
quently terminated fatally. During all that long fight on 
Sunday this small command had to make its own battle, and, 
as the conflict progressed, its tenacity of purpose was of the 
utmost importance to the safety of the whole army. Had it 
taken uanic or made a less stubborn fight, the columns of 
the enemy would have flanked the army ; the enemy would 



Memoir 1 7 

perhaps have reached Pittsburg lyanding, thus gaining the 
rear of the entire Union force, and perhaps overwhelming it 
before the arrival of the Army of the Ohio. The story of its 
resistance may be found in General Stuart's report. He de- 
scribes how the conflict began at 7.30 in the morning ; how 
he made his dispositions, and, notwithstanding the flight 
of the largest portion of the 71st Regiment, with the small 
remainder of men in his command, not to exceed eight hun- 
dred, of the 55th Illinois, under command of lyieut.-Col. 
Oscar Malmborg, and the 54th Ohio, he held his own until 
his ammunition was exhausted ; then gradually and in good 
order he fell back towards the lyanding until additional am- 
munition was brought. During the day he received a wound 
in the shoulder that compelled him to relinquish his com- 
mand to Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, the next in rank, who 
proceeded to carry out the duties thus imposed upon him. 
General Stuart says : 

' ' The experience on Sunday left me under no apprehen- 
sion as to the fate of the brigade ; if coolness, deliberation, 
and personal bravery could save it from loss or disgrace. 
Colonel Smith from the beginning to the end of the engage- 
ment on Sunda}^ was constantly at his post, rallying, 
encouraging, and fighting his men under incessant fire re- 
gardless of personal safety." ' 

At last the long day closed and friend and foe sank ex- 
hausted upon the battlefield. During all that night tor- 
rents of rain fell, and while the officers consulted about 
the plans for the morrow, the soldiers rested upon their 
arms. But Johnson had failed in his purpose notwith- 
standing the impetuosity of his attack, and his own per- 
sonal gallantry, which cost him his life, for he received 
a fatal wound during the progress of the battle. He had 
not accomplished more than to drive the Union arm)^ from 
its camps and press it back towards the bank of the river, 
and he had spent all his energy in the terrific struggle. 
Whether or not with the exhausted troops, their high hopes 
dampened by his death, Beauregard, who succeeded him, 
could have overwhelmed Grant's Army of the Tennessee on 

' IVar /Records, series i., vol. x., part i., p. 259. 



1 8 Thomas Kilby S7nith 

the following day, can only be a matter of conjecture. The 
safety of the shattered army was insured, for the well-trained 
columns of the Army of the Ohio, with General Buell in 
command, arrived at sunset on the opposite bank of the 
Tennessee River, and all night long they were transported 
to the battlefield. On Monday morning the conflict was 
renewed, and General Stuart's brigade under its new com- 
mander bore its full share in driving the enemy back to 
Corinth. 

The magnitude of this battle and the heroic gallantry of the 
troops engaged, must appear from the roll of the casualties. 
There were 1513 officers and men killed, 6601 wounded, 2830 
captured or missing, making an aggregate of 10,944, as the 
number lost in the Union army. How gallantlj'^ the Second 
Brigade of the First Division did its duty will be apparent 
from the fact that it lost 587 killed and wounded, and of this 
number the 54th lost about 195. The loss on the part of the 
Confederate army was reported by Beauregard as 1728 killed, 
8012 wounded, and 957 missing ; total 10,697, but it is 
thought to have been much greater. A captain of the 54th 
Ohio Regiment, I. T. Moore, of Company D, speaks thus of 
some of the incidents of the day : 

" Our brigade was encamped on the extreme left, consist- 
ing of two thousand men commanded by Colonel Stuart, 
acting Brigadier-General, and T. K. Smith. From the 
nature of the ground we were cut off from the main body of 
our army. About ten o'clock a.m., we were attacked by 
eight thousand infantry, two divisions of cavalry, and one 
battalion, that shelled us first and then advanced in solid 
columns. We waited until they were within three or four 
rods and then arose, advanced and fired with terrible effect 
and then falling back a few rods formed three oblique squares 
in the woods to protect ourselves against cavalry ; then the 
squares were reduced and formed in line of battle. The 
enemy was distinctly seen not more than twenty rods distant 
over a ravine. We lay down and waited their approach, 
then rose and let drive at them. We held the enemy here 
for three hours, but we had no cavalry or artillery, and the 
enemy was five to one of us. We were compelled to fall 



Memoir. 1 9 

back to the river to the gunboats. . . . We lay on 
our arms all night and next morning about seven o'clock 
we went into it again. We pursued the rebels all day ; 
lay on our arms Monday night, got up Tuesday morn- 
ing, ordered over to our left to sustain the battery; 
kept in line of battle for this purpose all day. Lay out 
Tuesday night, again Wednesday morning ordered to ad- 
vance three or four miles. . . . The field and staff in 
our brigade all day on duty as far as I know. Major Fisher 
was perfectly calm and serene, urging the men on to action ; 
but of all men I ever saw, Col. Thomas Kilby Smith took 
the lead. For an example of his actions : On Sunday while 
making our grand stand against the enemy, numbering five 
to our one, the shell, grape and rifle balls falling thick as 
hail, he rode " Old Blackie " all along our lines, scratching 
his head, apparently as much unconscious as though he was 
on dress parade, directing the troops to take good aim, shoot 
low, and not shoot at all unless they saw a rebel to shoot at. 
After Colonel Stuart, Acting Brigadier-General, was wounded 
and carried from the field. Colonel Smith had command of 
the whole brigade and sometimes other regiments, and main- 
tained throughout this uniform coolness and self-possession. ' ' 

In his report. General Sherman says : 

" My Second Brigade, Colonel Stuart, was detached near 
two miles from my headquarters. He had to fight his own 
battle on Sunday, and the enemy interposed between him 
and General Prentiss early in the day. Colonel Stuart was 
wounded severely and yet reported for duty Monday morn- 
ing, but was compelled to leave during the day, when the 
command devolved on Col. T. Kilby Smith, 54th Ohio, who 
was alwaj^s in the thickest of the fight, and led the brigade 
handsomely." 

In that portion of his report devoted to Monday's battle, 
he says : 

' ' The enemy had one battery close by Shiloh and another 
near the Hamburg road, both pouring grape and canister 
upon any column of troops that advanced toward the green 
point of Water Oaks. Wittich's regiment had been repulsed, 
but the whole bi Vade of McCook's division advanced beauti- 



20 Thomas Kilby Smith 

fully, deployed and entered this dreaded woods. I ordered 
my Second Brigade, then commanded by Col. T. Kilby Smith 
(Colonel Stuart being wounded), to form on its right, and 
my Fourth Brigade, Colonel Buckland, on its right, all to 
advance abreast with this Kentucky brigade before men- 
tioned, which I afterwards found to be Rousseau's brigade 
of McCook's division. I gave personal direction to the 
twenty-four pounder guns, whose well-directed fire first 
silenced the enemy's guns to the left, and afterwards at the 
Shiloh Meeting House. Rousseau's brigade moved in splen- 
did order steadily to the front, sweeping everything before 
it, and at four p.m. we stood upon the ground of our original 
front line, and the enemy was in full retreat." ' 

In this splendid charge no doubt Colonel Smith made the 
acquaintance of General Rousseau, with whom, until his 
death, he retained the most friendly relations. 

So ended the battle of Shiloh. Had the issue been differ- 
ent, the theatre of war might have been transferred north 
of the Ohio River. The chief interest of this battle arises not 
alone, however, from the terrible consequences of success or 
failure on either side, but from the evidence it gives of the 
natural soldiership of the population from whom the com- 
ponent elements of each army were made up. It is safe to 
say, that in no conflict have raw troops behaved with greater 
steadiness or gallantry. That there were some who skulked 
or sought safety in flight, cannot be denied ; but, for the 
most part, they acquitted themselves worthily, and gave 
evidence that the conflict must be stubbornly fought out to 
its logical conclusion.^ 

Colonel Smith remained in command of the brigade until 
the 1 8th of May, when he assumed again the command of his 
regiment, which was assigned to the brigade of Gen. Morgan 

1 War Records, series i., vol. x., part i., p. 251. 

* General Sherman's own conduct in this battle won him his com- 
mission of Major-General. In a dispatch to the Secretary of War, 
dated May 5, 1862, Asst. Secy. Thos. A. Scott says : . . . " Nom- 
ination of Sherman for Major-General gives great satisfaction. It 
was nobly gained upon the field of Shiloh." War Records, series i., 
vol. X., part ii,, p. 164. 



Memoir 2 1 

I^. Smith. Gen. Morgan L. Smith's brigade was the First 
of the Fifth Division, ' and the next general engagement that 
fell to the lot of the 54th was at Russell's House in the opera- 
tions before Corinth. It was not so actively engaged as the 
other regiments of the brigade, but elicited from its com- 
mander complimentary reference. General Smith says in his 
report under date of May 19, 1862 : 

" The 54th, Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, and the 57th Ohio, 
Col. A. V. Rice, were held in good order, obeyed all orders 
with alacrity, and were disappointed because they could not 
become hotly engaged." 

General Sherman endorses this report : 

' ' I was near at hand and witnessed with great satisfaction 
the cool and steady advance of this brigade, and bear my 
willing testimony to the brave conduct of Colonel (M. I,.) 
Smith and the entire brigade, ofl&cers and men." 

On the 29th of May, Corinth was taken, and the 54th Ohio 
occupied the town as a guard.' From that day this regiment 

' This Brigade consisted of the 8th Missouri, 55th Illinois, 54th 
Ohio, and 57th Ohio. War Records, series i., vol. x., part ii., p. 194. 

^ " I came back through Corinth with my last brigade, and finding 
there no part of Buell's forces, I thought proper to leave a regiment — 
the Fifty-fourth Ohio, Col. T. Kilby Smith— to guard the public 
property there. . . ." Sherman to Halleck, May 30, 1862. War 
Records, series i., vol. x., part ii., p. 231. 

' The spirit animating the Union army at that time is well illus- 
trated by General Sherman's congratulatory order after the fall of 
Corinth : 

*' General Orders \ 
No. 30. i 

" Headquarters Fifth DrvrsioN, 

" Camp before Corinth, May 31, 1862. 

"The general commanding Fifth Division, right wing, takes this 
occasion to express to the officers and men of this command his great 
satisfaction with them for the courage, steadiness, and great industry 
displayed by them during the past month. Since leaving our mem- 
orable camp at Shiloh we have occupied and strongly intrenched 
seven distinct camps in a manner to excite the admiration and highest 
commendation of General Halleck. The division has occupied the 
right flank of the Grand Army, thereby being more exposed and 
calling for more hard work and larger guard details than from any 



2 2 ThoTnas Kilby Smith 

was engaged in active field service in Tennessee, following 
the fortunes of Sherman's division, but in no severe engage- 
ments until the 26th of December, 1862. 

It would be tedious to follow in detail the movements of 
Sherman's command immediately following the capture of 
Corinth. About the 20th of June he occupied Holly Springs, 
Miss. , pushing his cavalry as far South as the Tallahatchie 
River and destroying several bridges. On the 29th of June 
he took up his line of march from Moscow Bend and pro- 
other single division, and the commanding general reports that his 
ofl&cers and men have promptly and cheerfully fulfilled their duty, 
and have sprung to the musket or spade, according to the occasion, 
and have just reason to claim a large share in the honors that are due 
to the whole army for the glorious victory terminating at Corinth on 
yesterday, and it affords him great pleasure to bear full and willing 
testimony to the qualities of his command that have achieved this 
victory, a victory none the less decisive because attended with com- 
paratively little loss of life. 

" But a few days ago a large and powerful army of rebels lay at 
Corinth, with outposts extending to our very camp at Shiloh. They 
held two railroads extending north and south, east and west, across 
the whole extent of this country, with a vast number of locomotives 
and cars to bring to them speedily and certainly their reinforcements 
and supplies. They called to their aid all their armies from every 
quarter, abandoning the sea-coast and the great river Mississippi, 
that they might overwhelm us with numbers in the place of their own 
choosing. They had their chosen leaders, men of high reputation 
and courage, and they dared us to leave the cover of our iron-clad 
gunboats to come and fight them in their trenches and still more 
dangerous ambuscades of their Southern swamps and forests. Their 
whole country, from Richmond to Memphis and from Nashville to 
Mobile, rung with their taunts and boastings as to how they would 
immolate the Yankees if they dared to leave the Tennessee River. 
They boldly and defiantly challenged us to meet them at Corinth. 
We accepted the challenge, and came slowly and without attempt at 
concealment to the very ground of their selection, and they have fled 
away. We yesterday marched unopposed through the burning embers 
of their destroyed camps and property and pursued them to their 
swamps, until burning bridges plainly confessed they had fled, and 
not marched away for better ground. 

" It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in his- 
tory, and every officer and soldier who has lent his aid has just reason 
to be proud of his part. No amount of sophistry or words from the 



Memoir 23 

ceeded again to Holly Springs. On the yth of July we find 
Colonel Smith's command, one regiment, on guard at Am- 
mon's Bridge over the Wolf River between Moscow and I^a 
Grange. On the 15th of July, by command of Major-General 
Halleck, the divisions of Sherman and Hurlbut were ordered 
to Memphis, and on the following day. General Halleck an- 
nounced his orders whereby he was transferred to the com- 
mand in chief of the army at Washington.' On the 20th of 
July, the command reached Memphis, and was encamped in 
and about Fort Pickering. General Sherman made the best 

leaders of the rebellion can succeed in giving the evacuation of Cor- 
inth under the circumstances any other title than that of a signal 
defeat, more humiliating to them and their cause than if we had 
entered the place over the dead and mangled bodies of their soldiers. 
We are not here to kill and slay, but to vindicate the honor and just 
authority of that Government which has been bequeathed to us by 
our honored fathers, and to whom we would be recreant if we per- 
mitted their work to pass to our children weaned and spoiled by 
ambitious and wicked rebels. 

"The commanding general, while thus claiming for his division 
their just share in the glorious result, must at the same time remind 
them that much yet remains to be done, and that all must still con- 
tinue the same vigilance, patience, industry, and obedience till the 
enemy lays down his arms and publicly acknowledges for their sup- 
posed grievances they must obey the laws of their country, and not 
attempt its overthrow by threats, by cruelty, and by war. They must 
be made to feel and acknowledge the power of a just and mighty 
nation. This result can only be accomplished by a cheerful and 
ready obedience to the orders and authority of our own leaders, in 
whom we now have just reason to feel the most implicit confidence. 
That the Fifth Division of the right wing will do this, and that in 
due time we will all go to our families and friends at home, is the 
earnest prayer and wish of your immediate commander." Ibid., p. 233. 

1 "lam ordered to Washington and leave to-morrow (Thursday). I 
have done my best to avoid it. I have studied out and can finish the 
campaign in the West. Don't understand and cannot manage affairs 
in the East. Moreover, do not want to have anything to do with the 
quarrels of Stanton and McClellan. The change does not please me, 
but I must obey orders. Good-by and may God bless you. I am more 
than satisfied with everything you have done. You have always had 
my respect, but recently you have won my highest admiration. I 
deeply regret to part from you." — Halleck to Sherman, Corinth, July 
16, 1862. War Records, series i., vol. xvii., part ii., p. 100. 



24 Thomas Kilby Smith 

of this opportunity of comparative quietude in camp for per- 
fect! ng the organization of his troops. In his general orders 
of July 24th, he directs : 

' ' Every officer in command of a regiment or detachment 
will now see that his men are well protected with clothing, 
provisions, arms, ammunition, canteens, haversacks, and 
everything which his own experience has shown him is 
necessary for the efficiency of the soldiers. . . . All officers 
of this command must now study their books. Ignorance 
of duty must no longer be pleaded." ' 

On the 8th of September, the brigade of Morgan ly. Smith, 
or selections from its regiments, were ordered on an expedi- 
tion for the destruction of a new bridge across Cold Water 
about seven miles below the town of Hernando.^ The expe- 
dition was eminently successful, and did sharp fighting with 
six hundred Confederate cavalry, and defeated them with 
small loss.' For the most part, the summer and fall of the 
year 1862 was occupied by the general in command with the 
details of civil administration in Memphis. His subordinates 
were occupied in the disciplining of their troops. 

The attention of the administration at Washington had 
been directed for some time towards the opening of the Mis- 
sissippi River by the reduction of Vicksburg. General 
McClernand had been detailed on a special mission to the 
Governors of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, to secure 
additional troops, with the understanding, expressed or im- 
plied, that he would be put in command of the expeditionary 
forces. During this time, General Grant, who had succeeded 
to the command vacated by Halleck on his transfer to Wash- 
ington, had been in correspondence with Sherman and Steele, 
who commanded the department of Arkansas, upon the 
same subject. On the 25th of November,^ Sherman issued 
his orders to leave Memphis, and on the 26th began his 
march southward to form junction with McPherson and 
Hamilton, south of Holly Springs, where General Grant 
fixed his headquarters on the 29th. On the 6th of December 
the command was at College Hill, Miss., and on the 9th, 

' War Records, series i., vol. xvii., part ii., p. 119. 

^ Ibid., p. 209. '^ Ibid., p. 217. '^ Ibid., p. 361. 



Memoir 2 5 

Sherman ordered back the men of the Second Division under 
M. ly. Smith, to Memphis.' On the 13th of December we 
find Sherman at Memphis, writing : 

" I have to report the arrival of Morgan L. Smith's divi- 
sion in the city, so that my Memphis forces of three divisions 
are now on hand. ... I will have all things ready by 
the 1 8th, except as a matter of course the transportation. I 
have ordered the quartermaster here to hold on to ten gun- 
boats for our use. ' ' ' 

On the 19th, orders were issued for the embarkation of the 
First, Second, and Third Divisions of the command which 
was now known as the ' ' Thirteenth Army Corps ' ' : 

" To proceed with all dispatch by divisions below Helena 
and lay to there on the Mississippi side, the head of the col- 
umn at Friars Point and the other divisions well closed up, 
there to await further orders. ' ' ' 

General Sherman's command consisted of about twenty 
thousand men, and the plan as outlined by General Grant, 
contemplated his landing above Vicksburg, proceeding up 
the Yazoo as far as practicable, and cutting the Mississippi 
Central Railroad and the railroads running east from Vicks- 
burg where they cross the Black River. Grant himself was 
to remain on the north of the Mississippi and co-operate as 
circumstances might require. After cutting the two railroads 
Sherman's movements were left to his own judgment.* 
Grant's official orders dated December 8th, addressed to 
General Sherman, directed him to assume command of the 
troops then at Memphis and such portion of General Curtis' s 
forces as were at that time east of the Mississippi, to organize 
them into brigades and divisions and as soon as possible to 
proceed with them down the river to the vicinity of Vicks- 
burg, and with the co-operation of the gunboat fleet under 
command of Flag Officer Porter, to proceed to the reduction 
of that place.' Sherman planned to reach Vicksburg about 
Christmas time, and to connect with Porter at Milliken's 
Bend, twenty-five miles above Vicksburg on the 24th.' On 

' War Records, series i., vol. xvii., part ii., p. 397. 

"^ Ibid., p. 408. '^ Ibid., p. 434. 

^/<5/af., parti., p. 474. ^ Ibid., ■^. doi. ^ Ibid., p. 60$. 



26 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the 25th of December, after having destroyed portions of the 
railroads upon which Vicksburg depended for its suppHes, he 
had his forces at the mouth of the Yazoo, and the whole 
naval squadron of the Mississippi, iron clads and wooden 
boats, was also there with Admiral Porter in command. On 
the 26th he debarked his command and moved up in four 
columns toward Vicksburg. On the night of the 27th the 
ground was reconnoitred and found to be as diflScult as it 
possibly could be from nature and art. He describes it thus : 

* ' Immediately in our front was a bayou passable only at 
two points on a narrow levee and on a sand bar which was 
perfectly commanded by the enemy's sharp shooters that 
lined the levee or parapet on its opposite bank. Beyond this 
was an irregular strip of bench or table land, on which was 
constructed a series of rifle pits and batteries, and beyond 
that a high abrupt range of hills, whose scarred sides were 
marked all the way up with rifle trenches and the crowns of 
the principal hills presented heavy batteries. ' ' ' 

It was against such defences as these that it was proposed 
to lead this expeditionary force ; and the purpose was carried 
out. Some skirmishing was carried on on the 28th, and 
during that day while reconnoitering, Gen. Morgan I^. 
Smith received a critical wound in the hip, and the com- 
mand of his division falling to Gen. David Stuart, Col. T. 
Kilby Smith took command of Stuart's brigade. Sherman 
had expected to hear some news of the arrival or approach 
of an expeditionary force under command of General Banks 
proceeding up the river from New Orleans, but Banks had 
not passed Port Hudson. No word had reached head- 
quarters for some time from General Grant, and, as Sherman 
says : 

' ' Time being everything to us, I determined to assault the 
hills in front of Morgan on the morning of the 29th, — 
Morgan's division to carry the position on the summit of the 
hill, Steele's division to support him and hold the country 
road. I had placed General A. J. Smith in command of his 
own (first) and that of M. L,. Smith (second) I ordered to 
cross on the sand pit undermining the steep bank of the 

' Ibid., p. 606. 



Me^noir 27 

bayou on the farther side facing the levee parapet and first 
line of rifle pits, to prevent a concentration on Morgan. 
The assault was made and a lodgment effected on the hard 
table land near the country road, and the head of the as- 
saulting colmnns reached different points of the enemy's 
works, but there met so withering a fire from the rifle pits 
and cross fire of grape and canister from the batteries, that 
they faltered and finally fell back to the point of starting 
leaving many dead, wounded, and prisoners in the hands of 
the enemy. . . . When the night of the 29th closed in, we 
stood upon our original ground and had suffered a repulse. ' ' 

After consultation with Porter, it was determined to make 
another assault on the following morning at four o'clock ; 
but subsequently, under the advice of the Admiral, that, 
" in as much as the moon does not set to-night until 5.25, 
the landing must be a day-light affair, which, in my opinion, 
is too hazardous to try, ' ' Sherman drew off his forces and re- 
embarked on his transports on January 2d. ' 

General Sherman's report shows the sharp fighting the 
Second Divison took part in during his operations. The 
Fourth Brigade under the command of T. Kilby Smith was 
charged especial Ij^ with the duty of clearing away a certain 
road under the fire of the enemy. General Stuart says : 

' ' The work was vigorously pressed under his immediate 
supervision and orders and he devoted himself to it with as 
much energy and activity as any living man could employ. 
It had to be prosecuted under the fire of the enemy's sharp- 
shooters, protected as well as the men might be by our 
skirmishers on the bank, who were ordered to keep up so 
vigorous a fire that the enemy should not dare to lift their 
heads above their rifle pits ; but the enemy, and especially 
their armed negroes, did dare to rise and fire, and did serious 
execution upon our men. I received a message from Gen. 
Sherman verbally, that Gen. Morgan was crossing and to 
push my forces across if possible. I ordered Col. Smith 
(54th Ohio) to commence the crossing of his brigade at some 
hazard, and he placed his own regiment (54th Ohio) in the 
advance and had them in the right way descending the hill 

' Ibid., p. 608, 609. 



28 Thomas Kilby Smith 

when Brig. -Gen, A. J. Smith appeared on the ground to 
assume the command of the division by Major-Gen. Sher- 
man's orders. . . . After Gen. Smith assumed command, 
he ordered the work to be resumed in the roadway to clear 
off all obstacles still further. Under the fire of battery and 
the skirmishers, I set a party of thirty men with officers 
(from the 54th Ohio) at work, which was by this time well 
down near the foot of the steep, in view of the enemy's sharp- 
shooters, and the first man to strike an axe into a tree was 
shot dead. At almost the same moment, a shell from one 
of our batteries exploded prematurely, killing three men in 
the roadway and wounding some others. Two other shells 
from the same gun prematurely exploded in the same man- 
ner and the men swore terribly, but did not seem dismayed 
nor did they leave their ground till they were retired by 
Gen. Smith's orders. He desired to make a personal recon- 
noissance of the ground in our front and our operations for 
the day were suspended. It was near sunset, and the Fourth 
Brigade had alone of all the troops in the division, been en- 
gaged as skirmishers, as pickets, and working parties from 
the time we were debarked, and were fatigued. . . . 
Col. T. Kilby Smith, of the 54th Ohio, who succeeded to the 
command of the Fourth Brigade, after I assumed that of the 
division, performed every duty with activity, intelligence 
and directness most marked. He was constantly in every 
part of the field executing my orders, and was tireless in his 
zeal, enterprise and devotion. I was sincerely grateful to 
him. Unsuccessful though our attempt was, it proved our 
men to be all we had hoped of them. There was no skulk- 
ing timidity and no racing to the rear. ' ' ' 

General Sherman's losses in this assault in killed, wounded 
and missing, were 1776 ; while those of the enemy were but 63 
killed, 134 wounded and 10 missing. It was undoubtedly a 
decided victory for the Confederate forces, and the Union 
commander was compelled to send a flag of truce, asking 
permission to bury his dead and care for his wounded." 

' The casualties in the brigade were : 11 killed, 40 wounded, and 4 
missing. Ibid., p. 637. 

* Ibid., p. 668. This flag was carried by Col. T. Kilby Smith, 



Memoir 29 

Without a very careful study of the topography of the coun- 
try about Vicksburg from maps and the descriptions given in 
detail in the reports, the reader cannot understand the vari- 
ous movements of troops ; but what has been quoted is 
enough to show their metal, the patient, steady heroism dis- 
played in the conflict and the undaunted spirit with which 
they sustained their rev^erses. They were veterans after a 
year of campaigning and instruction, since they moved up 
the Tennessee River to Pittsburg lyanding. Sherman was 
severely criticised for his action in this assault, known 
among military men sometimes as the battle of ' ' Chickasaw 
Bayou," and the newspaper criticisms led to the trial by 
court martial of a reporter who, in the presence of Col. T. 
Kilby Smith and other officers, admitted to General Sherman 
the inaccuracy of his published statements.' In this affair 
Sherman showed his characteristic courage and straightfor- 
ward determination to maintain the dignit}^ of his position, 
and he came out of it without losing a particle of the 
confidence of his officers and men. The whole assault was 
practically in the nature of a forlorn hope, and it proved that 
Vicksburg was the most difficult obstacle yet encountered by 
the Army of the Southwest. In writing of this attempt, 
Admiral Porter expresses himself thus : 

' ' Had the combinations been carried out in our last ex- 
pedition. Gen. Grant advancing by Grenada, Gen. Banks 
up the river, and Gen. Sherman down the river, the whole 
matter would have assumed a different aspect ; but Gen. 
Sherman was the only one on the ground. The army of 
Gen. Grant had been cut off from its supplies,^ Gen. Banks 
never came up the river, and Gen. Sherman having at- 
tempted to take the enemy by surprise, lost about seven 
hundred wounded, three hundred killed and about four 
hundred prisoners." ' 

The command now moved to Milliken's Bend, where it 
was joined by Major-General McClernand, who, in pursu- 
ance of orders from Washington under directions of Gen- 

' Ibid., Series i., vol. xvii., part ii., p. 890. 

° By the capture of Holly Springs. 

^ Porter to the Secretary of the Navy, January 18, 1863 ; Ibid., p. 888. 



30 Thomas Kilby Smith 

eral Grant, assumed command of the forces on the 4th of 
January, 1863, McClernand determined, under the advice 
of Sherman, to proceed to the reduction of a strong fort 
established by the enemy on the White River, known as 
" Arkansas Post," or " Post Arkansas," a small village fifty 
miles from the mouth of the river and one hundred and 
seventeen below Little Rock, It was defended by Fort 
Hindman and garrisoned by about five thousand troops 
under command of the Confederate General Churchill. Upon 
taking command of the expedition, he divided the forces into 
two corps d'armee, namely, the Thirteenth, his own, and 
the Fifteenth, Sherman's. Col. T. Kilby Smith was in com- 
mand of the Second Brigade of the Second Division of the 
Fifteenth Corps, Brigadier-General Stuart commanding. 
This brigade was composed of the 55th Illinois, the 127th 
Illinois, the 54th Ohio, and 83d Ohio, and the 57th Ohio, 
On the 9th of January the command landed, and on the loth 
marched towards the fort. On the nth, a combined attack 
was made by the army and the gunboats under command of 
Admiral Porter, The assault was so successful that white 
flags were raised without orders of General Churchill, and 
the whole rebel force surrendered at discretion. General 
McClernand, in his official report speaks of the brigade com- 
manders of the Second Division in the following terms : 

" Col, G. A, Smith and T, Kilby Smith led their com- 
mands in a manner challenging the commendation of their 
superior officers." 

It fell to the lot of the latter to marshal the prisoners who 
had been taken, — nearly five thousand men, and a large 
quantity of mercantile stores were the spoils of this exploit. 
The Union army lost an aggregate of 1061 men in killed, 
wounded and missing. Col. T. Kilby Smith received from 
Sherman commendation as having ' ' commanded the Second 
Brigade of the division and did it bravely and well, and 
deserves special notice ' ' ; and Stuart thus speaks of his 
brigade commanders : 

" Col. Giles A. Smith, commanding the First Brigade, and 
Col. T. Kilby Smith, commanding the Second Brigade, led 
their brigades with gallantry and deserve honor and advance- 



Memoir 2 1 

ment— deserve it because they have earned it in the field, 
where alone it can be earned." ' 

The success at Arkansas Post gave no little reputation to 
General McClernand, but it is fair to believe that he reaped 
but the harvest that had been sown by Sherman : such is the 
testimony of Porter, who remarked in a letter to Sherman 
under date of February 3, 1863 : 

' /<^«^., pp. 706, 757, 773. Report of Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith, 
54th Ohio Infantry, commanding Second Brigade : 

" Hdqrs. 2D Brig., 2D Drv., 15TH A. C. 

" Post Arkansas, Ark., Jany 12, 186^. 
" Captain : > j ./ . o 

" I have the honor to report the part taken in the late action by 
the Second Brigade under my command. 

" Debarking by order of General Stuart on Saturday, loth instant, 
the Brigade followed the line of march indicated, and just before 
night took position in the woods in front of one of the enemy's bat- 
teries. I ordered the 57th Ohio to the right to support the 8th Mis- 
souri, by request of Colonel Smith, commanding the First Brigade, 
and the 55th Illinois and 83d Indiana forward with instructions to 
draw the enemy's fire, which they did, with such effect as to cause the 
loss of 14 killed and wounded by their shells, among them Captain 
Yeoman, commanding the 54th Ohio, whose right arm was shattered, 
since amputated. 

"Early the next morning the Brigade moved forward, and at one 
o'clock formed in line of battle to storm the fortifications, the 57th 
Ohio, led by Colonel Mungen, on the right, the 127th Illinois on the 
centre, the 83d Indiana on the left, with the 55th Illinois and 54th 
Ohio in reserve immediately in the rear. Their action was under the 
eye of General Stuart. I saw none falter, and where all officers and 
men were so gallant, I cannot make invidious distinction. The 83d 
Indiana and the 57th Ohio each have a Texan flag as trophies sur- 
rendered by the enemy before the close of the fight. I desire to make 
special mention of Colonel Malmborg, commanding the 55th Illinois, 
whose zeal and unremitting diligence in superintending working 
parties and planting batteries, performing at the same time his whole 
duty to his regiment, command compliment. 

"With a list of casualties in my command, appended below, and 
which I have to submit herewith, I am, with the highest respect, 
"Your obedient servant, 

" Thomas Kii.by Smith, 
" Col. comdg. 2d Brig., 2d Div., 15 A. C. 
" CapT. C. MCD0NAI.D, 
" Ass't Adjt. Gen." 



32 Tho7nas Kilby Smith 

* * As to the Arkansas Post affair, it originated with yo^xx- 
self entirely, and you proposed it to me on the night you 
embarked the troops, and before it was known you had been 
reheved, and after General McClernand had arrived. What- 
ever disposition was made of the troops after landing, your 
plans at least were carried out as far as the state of the woods 
and country would permit. . . . " ' 

After dismantling Fort Hindman, and destroying a quan- 
tity of property and sending an expedition to capture Des 
Arc and Du Val's Bluff, McClernand by orders from General 
Grant, withdrew his army to Napoleon on the Mississippi at 
the mouth of the Arkansas River. On the 21st of January, 
1863, the troops were landed at Young's Point, and on the 
2d of February, General Grant arrived and took command 
in person. He at once set himself to consider the problem 
of the reduction of the great rebel stronghold. Vicksburg 
is situated on a high bluff on the side of a horseshoe made 
by the Mississippi taking a sharp curve. The bluffs upon 
which it stands rise 

" A little below the City and extend northeast twelve or 
fifteen miles to the Yazoo River where they terminate in 
Haines Bluff. In the rear of the city the ground is high and 
broken, falling off gradually towards the Big Black River 
twelve miles distant ; this range of hills fronting the Missis- 
sippi and the Yazoo, which projected along its entire length, 
and the only approach to Vicksburg by land was up their 
steep faces. ... At the base of these bluffs were rifle 
pits, and to render the approach still more difficult, there is a 
deep natural ditch called ' Chickasaw Bayou, ' extending from 
the Yazoo below Haines Bluff, passing along near the base 
of the bluffs for some distance and emptying into the Missis- 
sippi. Added to this is a deep slough, whose bottom is quick 
sand, and supposed to have once been a lake, which stretched 
along the foot of the bluffs and entered the bayou where 
the latter approached them." " 

Sherman's assault on the 28th of December, 1862, had 
shown the futiHty of any effort to carry the enemy's works 

* Ibid., p. 883. 

* The Civil War in America, Lossing, vol. ii., p. 576. 



:? 



Memoir 33 

by assault from the front of Chickasaw Bayou. When Gen- 
eral Grant looked over the field it was suggested to his mind 
that if a canal could be cut across the narrow peninsula 
formed by the bend of the great river and the waters of the 
stream be diverted through this canal, Vicksburg would be left 
isolated, and troops and supplies might be transported with- 
out annoyance from its batteries to a new base below the 
town. The canal had been commenced the year before, by 
General Williams, and to complete this, a mile of digging 
was all that was necessary and energetic efforts were made 
to accomplish the work ; but it was the spring of the year 
and the waters of the Mississippi were very high, and not- 
withstanding every effort to restrain them, on the 8th of 
March they broke through the barrier that had been erected 
and submerged the camps. The project of diverting the 
main stream was found to be futile, and a new plan had to 
be devised. A glance at the map of the region about Vicks- 
burg, shows an extraordinary system of waterwaj^s, various 
inland streams being so connected that it is possible for boats 
of light draught to make their way from points on the 
Mississippi through the country and back again to the main 
stream. Some of these, such as the Tallahatchie, the Sun- 
flower, Deer Creek, Steele's Bayou, and others, immediately 
became objects of attention to the general commanding, and 
he thought that if a channel were cut from the western shore 
of the Mississippi forty or fifty miles above Vicksburg across 
the narrow neck of land into I^ake Providence, he could ob- 
tain a continuous water connection far below Vicksburg 
through the bayous Baxter and Macon and the Tensas River, 
as also into the Washita and Red Rivers. Various ex- 
peditions were projected and sent out to accomplish this re- 
sult.' On the 15th of March, Admiral Porter, taking some 
of his gunboats, endeavored to find a way through Steele's 
Bayou into the Sunflower Creek, and so into the Yazoo be- 
tween Haines' Bluff and Yazoo City. Perhaps no more 
remarkable effort was made during the war to carry on hos- 
tilities by the aid of the naval arm of the service. Admiral 
Porter was aided by a detachment from the Fifteenth Army 

^Ibid., p. 586. 
3 



34 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Corps in his operations. He had advanced up Deer Creek 
with five ironclads, but ' ' before reaching Rolling Fork, had 
found the Creek so full of growing trees and willows that his 
progress was slower than he had calculated, and the enemy- 
had begun further to obstruct his progress by felling trees in 
the channel and firing from ambush on his working parties 
when exposed on the decks or on the banks of the stream. ' ' ' 
Finding himself in this exposed position, and being threat- 
ened with the danger of losing his fleet, he called on Sherman 
for assistance. The latter hastened to his aid. Sherman in 
person accompanied the division of General Stuart with its 
three brigades, those of Giles A. Smith, T. Kilby Smith and 
Hugh Ewing. There were no serious hostilities in the course 
of this expedition, and the consequence was but small loss 
of life, and eventually the fleet was extricated from its dan- 
gerous position. As a part of the narrative of the command 
of T. Kilby Smith, his report is given in full : 

" Hdqs. Second Brig., Second Div., Fifteenth A. C, 

Camp opposite Vicksburg, March 27, 1863. 
" Sir : 

" I have the honor to submit the following report of the 
part taken by four regiments of the Second Brigade, under 
my command, in the late expedition in aid of Admiral Porter. 
(The 55th Illinois was ordered on special service the 15th 
instant, under command of Brigadier-General Ransom, and 
did not report back to my command till the 26th instant.) 

" On the morning of the 17th instant, the brigade was 
embarked at Young's Point upon transports, and, proceeding 
up the Mississippi River, landed at Eagle Bend, from whence 
a bridge and road sufficient for the passage of infantry was 
constructed to Steele's Bayou by details from the division. 

" On the evening of the 19th, the brigade was debarked, 
and, marching to Steele's Bayou, bivouacked near its inter- 
section with Muddy Bayou. At this time I placed the com- 
mand with lyieutenant-Colonel Rice, of the 57th Ohio, the 
senior officer of the brigade, and, in company with Generals 
Sherman and Stuart, proceeded up Steele's Bayou in a tug, 

' Shertran's Report, War Records, series i., vol. xxiv., pt. i., p. 434. 



Memoir 35 

to reconnoiter and prepare the way for the transit of troops. 
The bayou was tortuous and overhung with trees, whose 
branches seriously impeded the passage of transports. Great 
skill and constant vigilance on the part of the navigators 
were required to keep these from irreparable injury ; the 
sinking of a boat would have been fatal to the expedition 
and resulted in disaster to the gunboat fleet. 

" I remained with General Stuart, aiding him in facilitat- 
ing the embarkation and debarkation of troops until the 
whole division was landed at the mouth of Black Bayou. 
By misunderstanding I was prevented from joining my own 
brigade at Hill's Plantation, two miles above, it having 
marched before my arrival at that point, where I expected 
to meet it with the residue of the troops. The brigade, 
therefore, remained under the command of I^ieutenant- 
Colonel Rice, to whose report, forwarded herewith, I re- 
spectfully refer for its proceedings from the evening of the 
2ist to the morning of the 24th instant. While I was morti- 
fied at being separated from my soldiers, my perfect confi- 
dence in the ability of this fine oflBcer left me no apprehension 
as to his conduct of the command. 

' ' You will observe by his report that, on the morning of 
the 22d, the brigade marched up the east bank of Deer Creek, 
and having, in co-operation with the First Brigade, extricated 
Admiral Porter and his gunboats from their perilous position, 
returned to Hill's Plantation at 11 a.m. of the 24th instant. 
Here it bivouacked. 

' ' At noon on the 25th instant, I ordered the 83d Indiana, 
Colonel Spooner commanding, to take position on Fore's 
Plantation, a mile or more distant from Hill's, as an advance 
post, a bod}^ of cavalry and regiment of infantry from the 
enemy making demonstrations in that direction. With 
these a sharp skirmish ensued, and Private William Lathrop, 
of Company G, 83d Indiana, was killed, the only casualty or 
accident of any kind I have to report. 

' ' In the engagement the regiment sustained its high repu- 
tation, and for minute particulars I respectfully refer you to 
the report of then Captain (now Lieutenant- Colonel) Myers. 

' ' At the close of evening, the 83d was withdrawn from the 



36 Thomas Kilby Smith 

front, and the following day (26tli) the brigade was em- 
barked, with other troops, upon the transports Silver Wave 
and Eagle, and, after an exciting passage through the bayous 
into the Yazoo, debarked at the lower landing of Young's 
Point on the 27th, from whence it marched, in good order, 
to camp on the levee. 

"It is usual, in reports of this character, to compliment 
oflScers and soldiers, and because the custom is common the 
compliment loses value ; yet I cannot, in justice to the hardy 
veterans of the Second Brigade, let the opportunity pass 
without once more testifying to the courage, constancy, and 
uncomplaining fortitude that sustains them under every ex- 
posure, fatigue, and privation. The whistling of bullets is 
as familiar to their ears as household words. Danger they 
scorn, and the cheerfulness with which they encounter hard- 
ships is beyond all praise. 

" Respectfully referring to the accompanying reports of 
regimental commanders, with request that they be returned 
at some future time for copy, I have the honor to be your 
obedient servant, 

" Thos. Kilby Smith, 
" Col., Comdg. Second Brig., Second Div., 
" Fifteenth Army Corps. 
" Capt. C. McDonald, 

" A.A.G., 2d Div. Fifteenth Army Corps, 
Dept. of the Tennessee." 

The reports of Lieut. -Col. A. V. Rice, of the 57th Ohio, 
who commanded the brigade during the absence of Col. T. 
Kilby Smith, and of the other regimental commanders are 
interesting for details. In that of Major C. W. Fisher, of the 
54th Ohio, there appears a pleasing incident of the conduct 
of General Sherman, showing the comradeship with which 
he treated his troops. Major Fisher says : 

" I must here mention the fact that the Major-General 
commanding the Fifteenth Army Corps was himself on foot 
and marched part of the time at the head of the 54th Ohio, 
and this exhibition of carelessness of personal comfort on the 
part of one so high in command, filled the men with enthusi- 



Memoir -j 7 

asm, and it is saying but very little to say that all believed 
in General Sherman." ' 

On returning from this expedition, an event occurred of 
personal significance to the officers and soldiers of the Second 
Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, which no doubt filled 
them with regret. General David Stuart, who had been 
their commander during all the operations of the siege and 
for some time prior thereto, who had displayed his soldierly 
quahties from the conflict at Shiloh, had failed of confir- 
mation as brigadier-general by the United States Senate 
^ hatever may have been the reasons for the action of that 
body m refusing to " advise and consent " to the advance- 
ment of this gallant officer, the result was to deprive the 
army of one of its most efficient commanders. General 
Sherman showed his appreciation by a highly complimen- 
tary order and appointed Major-Gen. Francis P. Blair, Jr. 
to command the division : ' '' 

"General Orders") 
No. 19. J 

" Hdqrs. Fifteenth Army Corps, 

"Young's Point, La., April 4, 1862. 

" I. Brig. -Gen. David Stuart, having been relieved from 
duty with his division, by special orders No. 92, Head- 
quarters Department of the Tennessee, April 2, 1863, Maj.- 
Gen. F. P. Blair, Jr., is appointed to command the' same 
and will transfer his present brigade to the senior officer for 
duty with it, and assume command of the Second Division 
Fifteenth Army Corps, Headquarters near the centre of the 
present division camp. 

"2. In relieving General Stuart of the command of the 
Second Division, with which he has been so long identified 
the commanding general takes the opportunity to thank him 
for his energetic, patriotic and successful services. Ever 
present, ever active, and by a high-toned spirit of honor and 
dignity imparting to his troops a similar tone, he has now 
the deep respect and aff^ection of his men and he elicits the 
praise of all his commanders. Whilst all must yield to the 

' War Records, part i., vol. xxiv., series i., p. 448. 



38 Thomas Kilby Smith 

decree which separates us for a time, all may properly hope 
that the services of General Stuart are by no means lost to a 
cause which is common to a whole continent, and the success 
of which more interests coming generations than the people 
of the present day. 

" His old comrades in arms wish him honor and success 
in life, and will hail his return to the colors which, for a 
time, he must leave to the care of others. 

" By order of Maj.-Gen. W. T. Sherman, Commanding. 

" L. M. Dayton, 
" Assistant Adjutant General." ' 

Grant now determined upon a plan, which, for boldness 
and success, was not exceeded in his military career, and 
which resulted in placing him in the front rank of the world's 
greatest soldiers. His plan was to attack Vicksburg in the 
rear, and, in order to accomplish this, to transport his entire 
army to the east bank of the Mississippi at New Carthage, a 
point below Vicksburg. To this end, Admiral Porter on the 
i6th of April, at night, having protected the boilers of his 
transports, ran the batteries in front of Vicksburg, and, al- 
though some of his boats were inj ured, and one entirely con- 
sumed, succeeded in getting the others by. On the 22d of 
April, another fleet of transports was sent down the river and 
passed the batteries with the loss of but one vessel. The 
injured transports were forthwith put in repair, and then the 
barges loaded with forage and rations got by and the army was 
put on the march overland. On the 29th of April, an attack 
was made upon Grand Gulf. This attack failing, a landing 
was effected at Bruinsburg, in Louisiana, the gunboats as 
well as the transports being used to ferry^ the army across. 
The Thirteenth Army Corps, under command of General 
McClernand, met the enemy at Port Gibson, where, after a 
heavy battle, the latter were driven back. Meantime, the 
Fifteenth Corps, under command of General Sherman, had 
been left alone to prevent General Pemberton, the Confeder- 
ate commander, from despatching any of the army in Vicks- 

' War Records, series i., vol. xxiv., part iii., p. 172. 



Memoir 39 

burg to the aid of the forces opposed to Grant. Sherman 
was directed to make a demonstration on Haines Bluff in 
order to deceive Pemberton and give him the impression that 
an attack in force was intended. Having embarked his 
Second Division on the 29th of April, and accompanied by 
the flag boat Black Hawk and several other naval vessels, he 
proceeded up the Yazoo. Late in the night of April 29th he 
was at the mouth of Chickasaw, and early the next morning 
came within easy range of the enemy's batteries and engaged 
them. Towards evening, he ordered the Second Division to 
disembark in full view of the enemy and seemingly prepared 
to assault, and thus kept up appearances until night, when 
the troops were re-embarked, and during the next day simi- 
lar movements were made accompanied by reconnoissance of 
all the country on both sides of the Yazoo. Orders were 
then received from General Grant to hurry forward to Grand 
Gulf, which in the meantime had been evacuated by the 
enemy in consequence of their losses at the battle of Port 
Gibson. Having accomplished the object of his feint, Sher- 
man dropped back to camp at Young's Point without any 
casualties, save a slight injury to one man, and on the next 
morning, the ist of May, started on his march, leaving 
Blair's division at Milliken's Bend. Marching with great 
rapidity, he effected a junction with the remainder of the army 
about the 13th of May, in the neighborhood of Jackson, Mis- 
sissippi, and, after considerable fighting, occupied that place, 
and having destroyed the railroads and much property of value 
to the enemy, he turned about towards Vicksburg. Blair, 
meanwhile, had remained at Milliken's Bend until the morn- 
ing of the 7th of May, when, in obedience to orders, he started 
his march towards Jackson with the First and Second Bri- 
gades, the Third Brigade being left with Gen, Hugh Ewing at 
Milliken's Bend ; he arrived at Hard Times, opposite Grand 
Gulf, at one o'clock on May loth, a distance by the road of 
sixty-three miles. He succeeded in crossing the river on the 
night of the nth, and on the morning of the 12th, took up 
his march for Jackson and on the evening of the 15th he 
reached Raymond. At this point the enemy had made a 
stand, and on the morning of the i6th a severe battle took 



40 Thomas Kilby Smith 

place. For about three hours the enemy resisted the advance 
of the Union army. Blair's division took an active part in 
the defeat that was inflicted upon the troops commanded by 
Generals Gregg and Walker of the Confederate army ; and 
during that day, and on the morning of the 1 7th, about three 
hundred prisoners were taken. Early on the morning of the 
17th, orders were received to proceed by Edwards' Depot, 
on the Black River railroad bridge, where the enemy had 
made a stand, but upon reaching Edwards' Depot, an order 
was given to proceed to Bridgeport. At 10 a.m. the com- 
mand reached this point, and resistance being made by a 
small party of the enemy, they were compelled to surrender 
and a bridge was then laid across the river and the division 
passed over and bivouacked for the night. On the i8th of 
May, the division closed in with the remainder of the army 
about Vicksburg. 

During this short campaign, occupying rather less than 
three weeks, the army under General Grant had crossed the 
Mississippi, had defeated the enemy with great loss in the 
battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, and Jackson, at Cham- 
pion's Hill and Edwards' Ferry, and now it was determined 
to make another effort to carry the stronghold of Vicksburg 
by an assault from the rear. 

On the morning of the 19th of May, the entire line of 
skirmishers of Blair's division was pushed forward with a 
view of obtaining a closer position and reconnoitering the 
ground. In his report General Blair says : 

" At 2 P.M. the signal was given for an assault, and my 
whole division pushed forward, and wherever the nature of 
the ground was not insuperable, reached the enemy's en- 
trenchments and in several instances planted our flags upon 
his works. The 2d Regiment of General Ewing's brigade, 
the 4th Virginia, and 47th Ohio, succeeded in approaching 
very near the enemy's works. The 13th U. S. Infantry, 
Capt. E. C. Washington, and the ii6th Illinois Volunteer 
Infantry, Col. N. D. Tupper, of the First Brigade, Col. Giles 
A. Smith, commanding, pushed forward to the bastion, and 
the 127th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Col. Hamilton N. El- 
dridge, the 83d Indiana Volunteer Infantry, Col. Benjamin J. 



Memoir 4 1 

Spooner, of the Second Brigade, commanded by Col. Thomas 
Kilby Smith, also succeeded in reaching the same ground, 
but the heavy fire of the enemy, who, not being pressed in 
any other quarter, was strongly re-enforced in our front, 
made it utterly impossible for them to make a lodgment in 
the works. They held their positions, however, with the 
utmost tenacity until night, when they withdrew. 

" The 2oth and 21st were employed in skirmishing with 
the enemy, reconnoitering the ground and improving our 
position. 

" On the 2 2d I received an order to renew the assault at 
ten o'clock in the morning.' 

" I massed my division on the ravine to the left of the 
Graveyard road, where it debouches upon that road as it 
passes across the valley immediately in front of the bastion. 
A volunteer storming party, consisting of two officers and 
fifty men from each brigade of the division, was to lead the 
assault. General Kwing's brigade and the brigades of Cols. 

' The following were the oflBcial orders : 
General Field \ 
Orders, No. — . J 

" Heiadquarters Department oe the Tennessee, 

" NEAR ViCKSBURG, Miss., May 21, 1863. 

" A simultaneous attack will be made to-morrow at ten o'clock a.m. 
by all the army corps of this army. During to-day army commanders 
will have examined all practicable routes over which troops can pos- 
sibly pass. They will get in position all the artillery possible and 
gain all the ground they can with their infantry and skirmishers, and 
at an early hour in the morning a vigorous attack will be commenced 
by the artillery and skirmishers. The infantry with the exception of 
musketeers and skirmishers will be placed in columns of platoons or 
by a flank, if the ground over which they may have to pass will not 
admit of a greater front, ready to move forward at the hour desig- 
nated. Promptly at the hour designated we will start at quick time 
with bayonets fixed and march immediately on the enemy without 
firing a gun until the outer works are carried. The troops will go 
light, carrying with them only their ammunition, canteens, and one 
day's rations. 

"The skirmishers will advance as soon as possible after heads of 
columns pass them, and scale the walls of such works as may confront 
them. If prosecuted with vigor, it is confidently believed this course 
will carry Vicksburg in a very short time and with very much less 



42 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Giles A, Smith and Thomas Kilby Smith were to follow in 
the order in which they are named, and to charge across the 
road by the flank. 

" At the signal, the volunteer storming party, led by Capt. 

loss than would be sustained by delay. Every day's delay enables the 
enemy to strengthen his defences and increases his chances for re- 
ceiving aid from outside. 

*' By command of Maj.-Gen. U. S. Grant, 

John A. Rawlins, A. A. Gen. 
Official, W. D. Green, A. A. Gen. 

General 1 
Orders, No, — . j 

" Hdqrs. Fifteenth Army Corps, Camp 
" BEFORE ViCKSBURG, May 21, 1863. 

"In addition to the details set forth in General Orders No. — . from 
Headquarters Department of the Tennessee, the following is added : 

" General Blair's and Tuttle's divisions will assault along the main 
road by the flank, the head of column preceded by selected or volun- 
teer storming party of about 150 men. 

"The skirmishers along the whole front will, during the night, 
advance within 100 yards of the enemy's works and will, with the 
spade or axe, prepare pits or fallen trees, so as to give them cover, 
from which to kill artillerists who attempt to load the guns and also 
to keep down the fire of the enemy's infantry and rifle-pits during 
the assault. As soon as the head of column is seen to enter the 
works, these skirmishers will hastily scale the works, fire upon the 
enemy, and drive him as far as possible. 

" The artillery will collect all the ammunition they can close at hand, 
and will begin at daylight to fire on the enemy's sally-port, the bas- 
tions, and batteries that have a fire on the ground over which the 
columns must pass, firing with great care and precision, reserving in 
their caissons, if possible, about 100 rounds of canister and shrapnel, 
for service after passing the parapet. 

" No wagons of any kind will attend the assaulting columns, but as 
soon as the infantry has passed inside, the artillery will follow, then 
the ambulances and ammunition wagons, one to a regiment. No other 
wagons will enter the enemy's lines until we are in full possession of 
Vicksburg. Notice is given to Division Commanders to call up their 
wagons. 

" Officers will assault on foot, but may have their horses brought to 
them inside by their servants as soon as the troops have passed in. 

"General Steele's division will in like manner attack by any route 
he may select,— the one to the front of Thayer being suggested. 

" Each column will attack by the watch and not depend on signals. 



Memoir 43 

John H. Groce, of General Kwing's brigade, dashed forward 
in gallant style and planted the flag of the Union, which was 
borne by Private Howell G. Trogden of the 8th Missouri, 
upon the bastion of the enemy. ... I then ordered the 
brigade of Colonel Giles A. Smith forward by the same route 
to the left of the road, as that taken by the last two regiments 
of General Kwing, and, as soon as this brigade went forward 

All must presume that others are doing their best, and do their full 
share. 

" As soon as the enemy gives way, he must be pushed to the very 
heart of the city, where he must surrender. 

" There is another valley or bayou on the other side of the one now 
separating us from the enemy. After the enemy retreats across that 
bayou our troops must follow at their heels and not permit them to 
rally in an interior work. 

" The General now looks to his corps to give the world the signal 
example of steady courage and its result, — success. We must have 
Vicksburg, and most truly have we earned it by former sacrifices and 
labor. By order of 

" Maj.-Gen. W. T. Sherman, 

" R. M. Sawyer, A. A. Gen. 
" Official, W. D. Green, A. A. Gen. 
" Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, 

" Commanding, Second Brigade." 

General \ 
Orders No. — . / 

Headquarters Fieteenth Army Corps, 
BEFORE Vicksburg, May 22, 1863. 

1. General Blair will hold the present ground in front now occupied 
by General Ewing and Colonel Giles A. Smith, and will withdraw the 
other brigade to a position of easy support. 

2. General Tupper will dispose two of his brigades to support the 
batteries and hold the other in reserve near the forks of the road. 

3. General Ewing and Colonel Giles A. Smith will construct in 
their front a rifle-pit or breast-height of logs, and lay out a covered 
road to their rear to be constructed as soon as poles can be procured. 

4. The artillery will hold its present position and lose no time or 
effort in renewing their supplies of ammunition . 

5. Each regiment will, under cover of night, remove their dead and 
wounded, inter the former and remove the latter to the hospital. 

By order of 

Maj.-Gen. W. T. Sherman. 
R. M. Sawyer. (Original lead-pencil order). 



44 Thomas Kilby Smith 

it was followed by the brigade of Col. Thomas Kilby Smith. 
But this route, while it was better covered from the fire of 
the enemy, led through ravines made almost impassable with 
abatis of fallen timber, and did not admit of anything like a 
charge. I therefore directed Col. Giles A. Smith to go for- 
ward as rapidly as the nature of the ground would admit, 
and assault whenever he found it practicable to do so, and 
directed Col. Thomas Kilby Smith to follow close up and 
support any movement Colonel Giles A. Smith should make. 
Col. Giles A. Smith pushed forward following the ravine to 
the left of the position of General Ewing, and reached a 
ridge about one hundred yards from the enemy's entrench- 
ments. ... It was late in the afternoon before these 
brigades were able to reach the positions which I have re- 
ferred to, so difficult and toilsome was the nature of the 
ground. . . . Both brigades went forward with a cheer 
when the signal was given to advance, . . . but after 
reaching the face of the works of the enemy they encoun- 
tered a most fatal and deadly enfilading fire from the enemy's 
guns on the left, which came crashing through the ranks, 
while in front they were met by an obstinate resistance from 
the entrenched foe, and it was found impossible to advance.' 

' It was during a part of this assault, probably, that the following 
orders were issued by Sherman : 

No. I. Gen. Bi^air : — I am on the hill behind you. Can see every- 
thing. Gen. Grant has been here. He assures me McPherson is ad- 
vancing handsomely and I hear his fire steadily advancing — don't 
mistrust others. I hear McClemand also advancing. Grant tells me 
when he was with McPherson he could not hear any musketry fire. 
The cannon which fires at you from the high bastions to your left is a 
blank gun and does not look to McPherson. I see to the right four 
guns firing at McPherson. Hold every foot of ground and waste as 
little ammunition as possible. I have plenty of ammunition near me 
and by sending details you can have it. Carry your wounded in the 
ravines till they can be removed. Remove the dead out of sight. 

" No. 2. I will direct the artillery to fire when they can without 
killing our men, whose colors I can plainly see. Reserve Kilby 
Smith ; send him this note : Let each brigadier get his brigade as 
close to the parapet as possible. Wait developments but fail not 
advantage of any let up. McPherson is well up, I can see the effect 
of his musketry. General Grant has gone to Steele to watch his 



Memoir 45 

Both brigades, however, maintained pertinaciously the 
ground they had won, and Col. Giles A. Smith's brigade 
still retains it, having fortified the position, and, under 
orders the position has been materially strengthened and 
advanced. 

' ' I desire to mention in terms of the highest commenda- 
tion the conduct of the three ofiicers commanding the bri- 
gades of my division throughout the two affairs of the 19th 
and 2 2d, and the almost continuous fighting which inter- 
vened. ' ' 

General Sherman endorses the report of General Blair, and 
says in the course of his remarks : 

* ' In reviewing and submitting the report of General Blair, 
. I take great pleasure in endorsing all he says of the 
conduct of his men and officers during both assaults of May 
19 and 22, for, from my position on both days, I had this 
division in full view. If any troops could have carried and 
held the entrenchments of Vicksburg, these would. ' ' ' 

The losses sustained by the Second Division aggregated 
890 men killed, wounded and missing, whereof the Second 
Brigade met with the smallest loss, 201, the Third with the 
largest, 386. As this narrative is especially concerned with 
the troops under the command of Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, 
his report of operations from May 6th to May 24th, is given 
in full: 

movements. Wliere there is no regular glacis, the nearer you are 
to the parapet, the better chance there is for shot passing over. Send 
this note to all your brigadiers. 

Yours, 

Sherman, 

(Note). These relics of the war are written with lead pencil on the 
back of paroles, wherein W. McKay Perry, a private of Company H, 
5th Regiment, Mississippi, Volunteer Infantry, and J. A. Barton, 
Corporal of Company I, 5th Missouri Volunteers, C. S. A., pledge 
their words and honor not to take up arms against the United States 
Government until they are regularly exchanged, and bear date May 
17, 1863. They are of interest as showing how closely General Sher- 
man watched the movements of his troops, and how carefully he 
anticipated the exigencies of the battle. 

' War Records, series i., vol. xxiv., part ii., p. 261. 



4-6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

" Hdqrs. Second Brig., Second Div. Fifteenth A. C, 
" In Camp on Wai,nut Hii^i^, near Vicksburg, May 24. 

" Major : In compliance with orders of even date, I have 
the honor to make the following report : 

" The Second Brigade is composed of the 55th Illinois, 
commanded by Col. Oscar Malmborg ; 54th Ohio, Lieut. Col. 
C. W. Fisher ; 57th Ohio, Col. Americus V, Rice ; 83d In- 
diana, Col. Benjamin J. Spooner ; 127th Illinois, Col. H. N. 
Eldridge ; and Company B, ist Illinois Light Artillery, Capt. 
S. K. Barrett, a battery of four 6-pounder brass field pieces 
and two 12-pounder howitzers. 

" On the 6th instant, at Milliken's Bend, I received an 
order from General Blair to break up camp, and, with ten 
daj's' rations and ammunition, marching light, without tents 
or baggage, take up the line of march for Grand Gulf. 

" On the 7th, at daybreak, with the 54th Ohio, the 83d 
Indiana, and battery, we were on the road, the other three 
regiments having been detached to repair roads and bridges 
from Milliken's Bend to Richmond and beyond. These were 
picked up eyi route, and, on the evening of the 7th, the whole 
brigade was closed in due order of march, with transportation. 

" On the evening of the loth, we reached Hard Times 
Landing, sixty-five miles. 

" On the nth, we crossed to Grand Gulf. 

" On the 1 2th, resumed march, via Willow Springs, 
Rocky Springs, Cayuga, and Auburn, and arrived at Ray- 
mond, fifty-three miles, on the 15th, and in the evening, one 
mile from Raymond, on the road to Bolton, bivouacked in 
line of battle. 

" On the morning of the i6th instant, having the advance 
of the division, and following the command of Gen. A. J. 
Smith, I marched towards Edwards' Station. Firing was 
heard in front as early as eight o'clock. About noon I re- 
ceived orders to hold my command in readiness for an en- 
gagement. At one o'clock I found my left resting on the 
road, and shortly afterward, by order from General Blair, 
moved by the left flank of regiments, but without artiller}', 
the broken and woody nature of the ground rendering the 
transit of the pieces impossible. I advanced three-quarters 



Memoir 47 

of a mile. Before I Had changed front, a battery from the 
enemy opened fire upon me, and, by orders from General 
Blair, I fell back to near my first position, where I placed 
Captain Barrett in battery, supporting him by my entire 
brigade. Here we remained some two hours, when, by 
order from General Blair to support Gen. A. J. Smith, we 
moved forward by the left flank on the road, the battery 
following the 54th Ohio, till we reached a portion of General 
A. J. Smith's command, deployed, and under fire from a 
battery, within six hundred yards. Here I again formed, 
and reported to Gen. A. J. Smith. Shortly afterward. Gen- 
eral Blair, in person, ordered me to connect my lines with 
those of the First Brigade, Col. Giles A. Smith, which had 
been manoeuvring on my right and General Smith's. This 
was done by flank and forward movement, and accomplished 
by ten o'clock. The men rested upon their arms till day- 
break, when we marched without opposition to Edwards' 
Station, the enemy having precipitately retired under cover 
of the night, leaving the ground strewn with small arms and 
ammunition. I omitted to mention that we captured some 
two hundred prisoners during the afternoon and night. 

" We crossed the Jackson Railroad at Edwards Station 
at 9 A.M., and marched to Bridgeport, where we joined 
General Sherman, and crossed Black River over pontoons, at 
twilight, and proceeded two miles upon the Vicksburg Road 
and bivouacked. 

" On the morning of the i8th, the Second Brigade followed 
the First upon the road to Vicksburg, until, arriving at a 
point where the road forked, within one and one half miles 
of these headquarters, I was ordered by General Sherman to 
press forward upon the Graveyard road, and relieve the 
Thirteenth Regulars, who were deployed as skirmishers. 
About four o'clock I formed in line of battle within seven 
hundred yards of, and opposite to, the enemy's works, then, 
however, veiled from my view by the thick woods, and de- 
ployed seven companies of skirmishers, the woods in front 
being filled with the enemy. Shortly afterward General 
Sherman advanced in person. Within brief space of time 
General Steele's command was ordered upon my right, and 



4S Thomas Kilby SmitJi 

my litie of skinnisliers connected wntli liiiu and the forces of 
Gencnil McPherson, one and one half miles to my lett. 
Captain Barrett was placed in battery by Major Taylor, 
Chief of Artillery of the Fifteenth Army Corps, in front and 
centre, snpported by two companies from the 55th Illinois. 

" As night fell. I ordered the 54th Ohio, with three com- 
panies from the 127th Illinois as a reserve, to deplo}- far to 
my left, ^^^th a \'iew of comiecting with General Ransom's 
picket. Col. Giles A. Smith meanwhile had advanced and 
relieved my pickets on the right. Thus we remained resting 
on our anus till daybreak, when, by orders from General 
Sherman, I threw the pickets, as skirmishers, forward within 
close range of the enemy, advancing the brigade in line of 
battle on either side of what is called the Graveyard road, 
leading to what was supposed to be a sally-port in the forti- 
fications, the right wing. S3d Indiana and ujth Illinois with 
its left, the left "u-ing, 55th Illinois and 54th Ohio uith its 
right, upon the road till we reached the crest of a hill, five 
hundred yards from the enemy's works. Company B. ist 
Illinois Artillery. Captain Barrett, in position in front, still 
supported by details from the 55th Illinois. 

"At 9 A.M., the signal being given by Battery- A, five 
shots were fired to get range, when a vigorous fire was 
opened along the line, skirmishers and sharpshooters pouring 
in most destructive volleys from sheltered points along the 
range of hills and close under the parapets. 

" At eleven o'clock the following order was received from 
department headquarters, \\l : 

" ' Corps commanders will push forward carefulh-, and 
gain as close position as possible to the enemy's works, until 
2 P.M.; at that hour they will fire three volleys of artillery 
from all the pieces in position. This will be the signal for a 
general charge of all the anny corps along the whole line. 
When the works are carried, guards \N-ill be placed bv all 
division commanders to prevent their men from straggling 
from their companies. 

" ' By order of Major-General Grant, &c.' 

" At one o'clock I assembled \\\y pickets, calling in the 
54th Ohio. A reconnoissance of the ground over which I 



Memoir 49 

should pass had developed the fact that it would be impos- 
sible to advance my whole brigade in line of battle, the hills 
and knobs being exceedingly precipitous, intersected by 
ravines in three directions, the bottom treacherous, filled 
with sink holes, concealed by dried grass and cane ; the 
whole covered by abatis of fallen timber from a dense forest 
cut six months or more ago, affording spikes and cheveaux de 
frise most difficult to surmount. The roadway alluded to is 
cut and filled, slightly winding upon a ridge nearly perpen- 
dicular to my line of battle, and at its point of intersection 
with the fortifications makes an embankment some eighteen 
feet high; therefore I placed my right wing, 83d Indiana 
and 127th Illinois, in command of Colonel Spooner, its senior 
officer, in whose ability and dauntless courage I repose the 
fullest confidence, on the right of the road, with instructions 
to press forward as rapidly as possible, and in such order as 
he could best get over the ground. I ordered Captain Kili, 
of Company K, 54th Ohio, to take charge of his line of 
skirmishers, and Captain Moore, Company D, of the 54th 
Ohio, brigade officer of the day to aid him. I formed the 
55th Illinois with its right upon the road ; the 54th Ohio on 
line with the 55th, with orders to guide it ; and the 57th 
Ohio immediately in the rear but not in reserve. 

" At the appointed hour the signal was given, and at the 
command ' forward,' the troops advanced gallantly and 
without hesitation. It was almost vain to essay a line, 
owing to the nature of the ground, yet three times, under a 
most galling and destructive fire, did these regiments halt 
and dress upon their colors ; the nerve and self-possession of 
both officers and men perfect ; not a man flinched from his 
post. Having advanced some four hundred yards, I dis- 
covered that the men were thoroughly exhausted, and halted 
the left wing under the crest of a hill, from sixty-five to 
seventy-five yards from the ditch and parapet, and where 
they were comparatively sheltered from the small arms of the 
enemy. Returning to reconnoitre the position of my right 
wing, hid from my view by the embankment of the road, I 
perceived their colors advanced to the very base of the 
parapet, and also that my brigade was alone, unsupported 



50 Thomas Kilby Smith 

on the left or right, save by a portion of the Thirteenth 
Regulars, who had advanced to a position under the parapet, 
near the 83d Indiana and 127th Illinois. 

' ' To the left, as far as I could see (and from an elevated 
point I had great range), not a soldier to be seen, and only 
an occasional puff of smoke from the rifle of a sharpshooter, 
concealed far away among the hills, revealed the fact that 
we had friends near us outside of our division. Therefore, 
I determined to halt my command, report, and wait for 
further orders, especially as from the position of my left wing 
occupied (that which General Kwing is now fortifying) great 
execution could be done by my men upon the sharpshooters 
of the enemy, who, from the trees close behind the works, 
were picking off our officers with devilish skill. 

" Returning to the front, I sent an aide-de-camp to Gen- 
eral Blair with report. I received in answer orders from 
General Sherman ' to get my men as close to the parapet as 
possible, and be ready to jump in when they began to yield,' 
coupled with the assurance that McPherson was well en- 
gaged, and that General Grant was on the ground, and that 
the artillery of the enemy, which began to enfilade us, would 
be silenced.' I ordered my men to cease firing and fix baj^o- 
nets, with intent to charge, when, upon closer view, I dis- 
covered the works too steep and high to scale without proper 
appliances ; a few men could have been got over by the aid 
of a ladder of bayonets or digging holes in the embankment, 
but these would have gone to destruction. I could not make 
a demonstration with my isolated command that would have 
resulted permanently ; therefore I determined to maintain 
the position and await developments. The sequel to the 

' KiivBY Smith : 

Gen. Grant is here. He says McPherson is well engaged. When 
there he could not hear our fire. Never mind the artillery. 

Ammunition is being brought just to rear of Battery. Caution your 
men not to fire too much. Steele is also working forward. Get your 
men as close to the parapet as possible and be ready to jump in when 
they begin to yield. Blair is along his line. 

Sherman. 

Col. T. K. Smith, 

On the Field. 



Memoir 5 1 

attempt at assault is my guarantee for the course I pursued, 

" Meanwhile details were ordered back and ammunition 
furnished in abundance ; the most accurate marksmen were 
thrown forward with carte blariche to select the best cover. 
Companies were advanced from each regiment and relieved 
as ammunition gave out or guns became foul. A most 
deadly fire was kept up, and none of the enemy ventured 
his head above the wall who failed to pay the penalty. At 
the same time the right wing, with stern determination, 
maintained their ground. Their loss had been fearful, fall- 
ing upon their best line and non-commissioned officers. 
Captain after captain had been shot dead ; field officers were 
falling ; still, there was no flinching. I communicated 
through my aides. 

" As night fell, I received a verbal order, through an un- 
usual source, to fall back to my original position. This 
order was in immediate conflict to two received from General 
Sherman, and gave me no little surprise. I had won by 
severe loss the best position to fortify in our whole front. 
Already I had made arrangements to plant batteries upon 
the hill I occupied. Reluctantly I left the command with 
Colonel Rice, Colonel Malmborg, senior officer, having been 
most painfully wounded in the e5^e, and went back in person 
for report and explanation. 

" At General Blair's headquarters I received the following 
written orders : 

" ' Brigade commanders will collect the forces of their re- 
spective regiments, and occupy the last ground from which 
the}^ moved to the assault to-day, where their men will be 
well covered, advancing a line of skirmishers as near as pos- 
sible to the enemy's works, for the purpose of occupying his 
attention. They will be prepared to assault at daybreak in 
the morning. 

'"By order of Maj.-Gen. F. P. Blair, &c.' 

" At this time it had become quite dark, when suddenly 
the whole scene was brilliantly lighted by the flames of cer- 
tain wooden houses within the works, ignited by simultane- 
ous action of the enemy for the purpose of discovering our 
change of movement. This purpose had been anticipated 



52 Thomas Kilby Sfniih 

by Colonel Spooner, who, with skill and good judgment, 
withdrew from the ditch beneath the parapet to shelter. A 
few moments later, and hand-grenades and the grave would 
have been supper and bed for his men. 

" In pursuance of the last order, I quietly withdrew my 
command by details. At three o'clock in the morning they 
were in their old position. 

" Here we remained till the morning of the 22d instant, 
when orders issued to all the army corps for a simultaneous 
attack were received. My instructions were to march by the 
right flank down the road before mentioned, following the 
First Brigade, the right of the division being led by Brigadier- 
General Ewing, commanding the Third Brigade, by right of 
rank, the position of my brigade being upon the left ; a 
storming party of one hundred and fifty men to precede. 
Volunteers of fifty were called from each brigade, and 
promptly furnished pro rata of regiments. Of these I have 
occasion to report hereafter. 

" As soon as the First Brigade had formed, I closed behind 
it in the following order of regiments : 55th Illinois, 83d 
Indiana, 57th Ohio, 127th Illinois, and 54th Ohio, moving 
forward through a winding and covered roadway, constructed 
through the ravines near my line the night previous. 

' ' As we emerged upon the high ground from the cover of 
the woods and hills, I discovered that the programme had 
been changed. Instead of a dense column marching by the 
flank down the road, as I had expected, the ground I had 
passed over in the first assault on the 19th instant was cov- 
ered by scattered masses. The flag of General Ewing was 
flying from the hills from which I had been withdrawn. I 
reported in person to General Blair, and received an order to 
support Col. Giles A. Smith, who was endeavoring to make 
a position somewhere between General Ewing and General 
Ransom. This movement I could not have anticipated. 
Nevertheless, discovering cover, and knowing the ground 
well, I threw the brigade in column of regiments, and, by 
regiments, moved rapidly over the brow of the hill, massing 
them as best I could under cover from the enemy's musketry 
and a Whitworth gun, waspish in its annoyance. 



Memoir 53 

* ' They went over under heavy fire, but fortunately, owing 
to the promptitude and gallantry of the men, without having 
one killed or wounded, the volleys in each instance passing 
over their heads. Thence, by filing down a long ravine that 
skirts the main chain of bluffs, I overtook and again massed 
by column of regiments in the rear of the 8th Missouri, of 
the First Brigade, which had the most advanced position. 
Shortly I threw out the 55th Illinois in line with the 8th 
Missouri, and communicated with Col. Giles A. Smith in 
person. His report will suffice for the operations of that 
afternoon. 

" I maintained the position till ten o'clock the following 
morning, when, by intimation from Col. Giles A. Smith that 
orders had been issued to that effect, I fell back to the posi- 
tion now occupied by the troops, and reported in person to 
General Blair for further orders. 

' ' I shall make no apology for undue length of ray report, 
nor stint with measured praise the meed of the ofiicers and 
men of the Second Brigade. I only regret my own inability 
of language to do them full justice. With Colonel Malm- 
borg, of the 55th Illinois, I have been side by side in several 
battles ; have stood with him literally amid heaps of slain. 
He is always cool, prudent, and of dauntless cotuage, and in 
the recent engagement, although wounded twice, and, by 
strange fatality, first in the right and next in the left eye, 
displayed these qualities with the ardor and cheer so neces- 
sary in a charge. 

" Lieutenant- Colonel Chandler and Major Hefferman, of 
the same regiment, were constantly in the front ranks, doing 
their full duty with high bearing, setting a brave example 
for their men. 

' ' Colonel Fisher, ever ready, zealous, and watchful, keep- 
ing his men well in hand, led his charge most gallantly. 
His flag was foremost. He sought no shelter save under its 
folds. 

" Colonel Rice maintained his position exactly and handled 
his regiment as he would upon review — calm, collected, but 
full of daring. Should his severe wound prove fatal, as is 
feared, the service will suffer irreparable loss. 



54 Thomas Kilby Smith 

" Colonel Spooner has displayed in this last campaign 
soldierly qualities of the highest order. Indefatigable in his 
zeal for the welfare of his men, he fights them as he handles 
them upon the march. Always alert and ready, he can well 
share with them his own laurels. What I have said of Colonel 
Spooner equally applies to Lieutenant-Colonel Myers ; both 
scorn danger and both have skill to apply their courage. 

" Colonel Eldridge won for himself a conspicuous place. 
Among so many heroes it is hard to be distinguished ; yet 
he was first with the foremost. The richest honors of a 
grateful country should be showered upon him. 

' ' The following list of line ofl&cers I make special mention 
of for courage, and not only for courage, but patient fortitude 
and endurance of horrible heat in the ravines and hillsides, 
and fatigue ; exposed bj^ night and day on pickets and with 
advanced companies of skirmishers, unmurmuring, uncom- 
plaining, only careful that their soldiers should suffer as little 
as possible. I make special mention of Major Frank S. 
Curtiss, of the 127th Illinois, who exhibited courage and 
great zeal during the first assault particularly. He was 
ever in the foremost ranks, and even exceeded his duty in 
assisting soldiers with their guns when from frequent firing 
they became foul ; also of Captain Barrett and his admirable 
battery. His guns were splendidly served. He and his 
company are veterans, and have won imperishable honor on 
many a hard-fought field. His discipline and drill are 
perfect. 

" Lieut. -Col. Samuel R. Mott took command of the 57th 
Ohio after Colonel Rice had been carried wounded from the 
field. He handled his regiment with consummate skill and 
daring, proving that he was well worthy of his recent pro- 
motion. 

" I desire to compliment Capt. G. M. White, my acting 
assistant adjutant-general, and my aides-de-camp, Lieuts. 
John Enoch, of the 54th Ohio, and Edward E. Root, of the 
57th Ohio, and to express my obligations to Captain Gillett, 
of the 127th Illinois Volunteers, and Lieutenant Dorchester, 
of Thielemann's Cavalry, who were my volunteer aides. 
Each one of these discharged his duty with the utmost 



Memoir 55 

promptness and gallantry. Each one is intelligent, brave, 
and meritorious. I have to regret that I do not possess the 
power to advance them, but earnestly commend their pro- 
motion, and ask that the commanding general secure it. I 
also mention the names of my orderlies, James ly. Sherer and 
Henry I^eibrant, as worthy of great commendation for faith- 
fulness and courage. 

* ' Herewith I submit a list of the casualties in battle, ' and 
with request to hereafter make a supplementary report, inas- 
much as commanding officers of the regiment and batteries 
composing my brigade, having been ordered from the battle- 
field upon the march, have had no opportunity to make 
formal report, and respectfully calling attention to the re- 
ports of commanding ofl&cers of the storming party, Colonel 
Malmborg, Lieutenant-Colonels Mott and Fisher, now filed. 

" I have the honor to be, with highest respect, your 
obedient servant, 

" Thos. Kilby Smith, 
" Col. Comdg. Second Brig., Second Div., 
" Fifteenth Army Corps. 
" Maj. W. D. Green, Assistant Adjutant-General." 

The report of Colonel Fisher of the 54th Ohio, contains a 
graphic description of the part borne by that regiment, and 
he pays tribute to his commander, who was acting brigadier, 
in the following language : 

' ' Colonel T. Kilby Smith was on the field in both engage- 
ments, and displayed the same reckless personal bravery 
for which he has long since distinguished himself ' ' ^ 

Sherman's corps were roughly handled by the defenders 
of Vicksburg, and their experiences were not more severe 
than those of either McClernand or McPherson, who made 
the efibrt simultaneously with them. McClernand, under 
the false impression that some of his brigades had succeeded 
in capturing important defences of the enemy, sent word to 
that effect to General Grant, and, calling for re-inforcements. 
Grant ordered McPherson and Sherman to renew the assault 

' Nominal list, omitted, embraced in revised statements. 
* War Records, series i., vol. xxiv., part ii., p. 279. 



56 Thomas Kilby Smith 

at a time when, if the mistake had not been made, the loss 
would have been much less. Grant saj^s : 

" I attempted to carry the place by storm on the 22d, but 
was unsuccessful. Our troops were not repulsed from any 
point, but simply failed to enter the works of the enemy. 
At several points they got up to the parapets of the enemy's 
forts and planted their flags on the outer slope of the embank- 
ments, where they still have them. The assault was made 
simultaneously by the three army corps at 10 a.m. The loss 
on our side was not very heavy at first, but, receiving re- 
peated despatches from General McClernand, saying that he 
was hard pressed on his right and left, calling for reinforce- 
ments, I gave him all of McPherson's corps but four brigades, 
and caused Sherman to press the enemy on our right, which 
caused us to double our losses for the day. The whole loss 
for the day will probably reach 1500, killed and wounded." ' 

No substantial success repaid the carnage of this terrific 
battle. The attacking army had put forth its full strength and 
had been aided by the fleet under Porter ; but it was not pos- 
sible for human effort to have been successful against works 
so well garrisoned, so impregnably strong, and so valiantly 
defended : the Union army recoiled with a loss of almost 
three thousand men, and General Grant made up his mind 
there was but one way to capture Vicksburg, and that was 
by a regular siege. 

Colonel Thomas Kilby Smith, as we have seen, had been 
performing the duties of brigadier during all the operations 
attendant upon the movement against Vicksburg. He had 
been clothed with that responsibility in his first battle more 
than a year past, and his superior officers had not failed to 
commend him in official reports and by private testimony. 
In a letter to his mother. General Sherman wrote as follows : 

' Grant to Halleck, May 24, 1863, War Rec, series i., vol. xxiv., 
part i., p. 37. He animadverted severely upon McClernand, and 
eventually that officer was relieved of his command. 



Memoir 5 7 

"Hdqrs., Right Wing, Memphis, 

" December 14, 1862. 

" Mrs. Eliza B. Smith, 
" Cincinnati, Ohio, 
' ' Dear Madam : Yours of December gth, is received, and 
I have sent the letter for your son, Col. T. Kilby Smith, to 
him at his camp on the outskirts of Memphis, , , , We 
are now back at Memphis, and soon embark for lower down. 
Your son is in splendid health and spirits ; always cheerful 
and ready to serve his country. His past military career 
must be to you a source of pride, and, whatever the future 
has in reserve for us, you will have reason to feel satisfied 
with him. 

" I am rejoiced that Mrs. Sherman saw you, for she could 
tell what I cannot write. 
" I am, with great respect, 

' ' Your servant, 

"W. T. Sherman, 
" Maj.-Gen." 

It was but natural that his family and his friends should 
feel an ambition that the military services of Colonel Smith 
should meet with official reward : the only reward that a 
soldier can properly aspire to, — promotion, to the grade he 
has won. So long as this promotion was withheld, he was 
liable to be superseded in the command of his veteran brigade 
b}' any newly made brigadier who might be assigned to the 
division. Accordingly the subject of his promotion was 
brought to the attention of his commanding officers as soon 
as his military career warranted the appeal. In replying to 
one of Mrs. Smith's letters. General Sherman wrote : 

** Hdqrs. Fifteenth Army Corps, 

" Camp before Vicksburg, Feb. 18, 1863. 

" Mrs. Eliza B. Smith, 
" Cincinnati, Ohio. 
' ' Dear Madam : Your note of February 3d is received. I 
have borne official testimony to the gallantry, courage, and 
zeal of 5^our son on several occasions, and will do all that I 
can that he may receive the reward a soldier covets and 



58 Thomas Kilby Smith 

which his family and friends have a right to expect. I know 
that I am either behind or ahead of the times in sparing 
praise which, degenerating into adulation or flattery, ofiends 
a proud and conscientious gentleman. I am not one of those 
who fear that this war will cease before all are gratified with 
the full measure of military fame and glory. I know our 
enemy, and think I know enough of the deep-seated causes 
of this war, to feel confident that every ambitious man will 
have ample opportunity to reap fame and distinction. To 
your son and others in whom I have felt a special interest, I 
have ever counselled patience : ' Go on ; watch the develop- 
ments of war ; study it ; learn from the experience of others 
the true art ; knowledge, experience, and true merit in time 
will be worth more than rank.' The old leaven of party 
politics is so deeply implanted in the American heart, time is 
necessary to eradicate it, but it will be eradicated, and the 
soldier who, by close observation, by experience, and by real 
courage has gained a reputation among his fellow soldiers, 
will be called out to lead regardless of the mere rank con- 
ferred for political reasons or newspaper fame. The man 
who is to lead our country out of anarchy and chaos may be, 
as Napoleon, a captain still, and no one should covet honor 
too early. With this honest conviction, I have not pushed 
forward the young and ambitious soldiers who have looked 
to me for counsel and advice. Still, as you and others who 
have a right to act, wish to advance Colonel T. Kilby Smith, 
you may count on my hearty co-operation. His record is 
perfect, his habits excellent ; his health good ; his bravery a 
little rash ; his judgment good, and all he needs is hard 
study of books and men — I mean, of course, military text- 
books, and men who compose large armies. He has com- 
manded a brigade and now commands one, and naturally, he 
should be commissioned as a brigadier. It is improper for 
me to write to the President direct, because I know he is 
overwhelmed with care and labor, and it would be presump- 
tuous in me to suppose him influenced by my recommenda- 
tion, further than as contained in my ofiicial reports. I 
therefore enclose a letter to my brother John, which you can 
use according to the judgment of your friends. Excuse so 



Memoir 59 

long a letter, but believe me, with great respect, one who 
will always take a pleasure in sustaining the glory of our 
country and the true interests of all committed to my care. 

" W. T. Sherman, 
" Maj.-Gen." 
His letter to his brother was as follows : 

" Camp before Vicksburg, Feb, i8, 1863. 

" Hon. John Sherman, 
" Washington, D. C. 
' ' Dear Brother : I have been a little slow in pushing 
forward the young and ambitious oflScers in my command, 
because I have been more anxious that they should perfect 
themselves in true knowledge and experience, than in get- 
ting rank. Col. T. Kilby Smith, of Cincinnati, joined me 
at Paducah in Feb. last, and has, therefore, attended me in 
all my devious movements for the past year. Never absent 
one day. At Shiloh he succeeded to the command of the 
brigade on the disabling of his senior. Colonel Stuart, and I 
think in my report I mentioned how handsomely he acted. 
In several small actions, as we approached Corinth, he was 
ever on hand, and, more recently, at Chickasaw and Arkan- 
sas Post, he actually commanded a brigade, and in each 
case he bore himself well, almost too conspicuously. I 
honestly think that services on the battlefield, or wherever 
his men are, should be one of the reasons for promotion ; 
but I am sorry to observe, in the long lists published, that 
the old maxim holds good : ' One campaign at Court 
(Washington) is worth five in the Field.' By this time, 
the country must be convinced that war, and war alone, can 
restore the just power of the Government, and the first step 
must be in recognizing military service in the Field, and in 
encouraging those who seek the enemy in the South and not 
at Chicago. When you observe this change, I beg you will 
assist the friends of Col. T. Kilby Smith in being promoted 
to the rank of Brigadier-General, the command of which he 
now exercises, only liable to be displaced by the arrival of 
some new appointee who may not have smelt gunpowder or 
heard a bullet in earnest. 



6o Tho77ias Kilby Smith 

" My ofl&cial reports on file in the Adjutant- General's 
office will always form the basis of a recommendation. 
' ' Affectionately, 

" W. T. Sherman." 

Such was the testimony of the corps commander. Cer- 
tainly not less grateful to the feelings of a true soldier, and 
not less weighty in distinguishing his merit, is the opinion 
of those who were closest to him and under his responsible 
direction in so many campaigns and desperate actions. As 
early as the 24th of April, 1863, the following paper had been 
prepared and signed by the officers of the 54th Ohio and 83d 
Indiana regiments at least, and no doubt it was the intention 
to secure the signatures of the other officers of the regiments 
under his command, but the paper would seem to have been 
considered unmilitary, and was probably not presented. It 
is given, however, as an indication of the feeling of his sub- 
ordinate officers : 

" Second Brigade, Fieteenth Army Corps, 

" Young's Point, La., April 24, 1863. 
" R. M. Sawyer, 

"A. A. Gen. 
" Sir : Under General Orders No. 86, issued from the 
War Department April 2, 1863, Col. Thos. Kilby Smith, 
Cotnd'g Second Brigade, Fifteenth Army Corps, may at any 
moment be mustered out of the service of the United States, 
for the reason that his regiment the 54th Ohio Vols, does not 
now reach one half the maximum number prescribed by law. 
We understand that an attack will be made upon the city of 
Vicksburg in a few days, and as officers of said brigade, we 
beg leave to say that we desire to go into this fight under 
the immediate command of Col. Smith, and trust, that 
whether mustered out or not he may be permitted to lead his 
old brigade. We hope this communication will not be re- 
garded as ill-timed or unmilitary. 

" Respectfully." 

The following paper bears testimony of the affection of his 



Memoir 6 1 

subordinate officers, and the approval of his superiors, and 
was forwarded to Washington : 

" Young's Point, La., BEFORE ViCKSBXTRG, 
' • ' ■ " March i, 1863. 

" GenERAI< : 

" Impressed by a strong conviction that we owe to the 
services of a zealous officer, a true and faithful man and a 
gallant soldier, our comrade in arms, under whom we are 
serving with confidence and pleasure, an expression of our 
appreciation of his merits and deservings, we take the liberty 
(not generally approved, yet one we feel assured jj/^z^ will not 
criticise) of addressing you as our appropriate medium in 
seeking the accomplishment of our wishes. 

" The officers and soldiers of the Second Brigade think 
Col. Thomas Kilby Smith, of the 54th Ohio, now command- 
ing the brigade, ought to be promoted. He has been upward 
of a year and a half in service, having never for a day nor 
an hour been absent from his command. 

" His regiment formed one of your old division, with 
which you fought the battle of Shiloh, made the advance on 
Corinth, and commanded from that day to this — with that 
division, we say, you fought, mainly, the battle of Shiloh. 

" It claims for its record the testimonial of Major-General 
Halleck — ' To General Sherman, more than to any other 
officer, are we indebted for repulsing the enemy on Sunday, 
and greatly for the glorious victory on Monday. ' 

"It is considered that Colonel Smith was conspicuous 
amongst your officers for his gallantry on that occasion. 
Numerous promotions were made for the battle of Shiloh, 
but not one from your division. We were content and satis- 
fied by the distinction bestowed on you, for it was reflected 
on us. In the march on Corinth we were constantly in the 
advance. Colonel Smith was ever foremost and never de- 
ficient. 

' ' In the affair before Vicksburg (at Chickasaw Bayou) no 
officer in the field was more conspicuous for his zeal, bravery, 
gallantry and indifference to danger or his own repose or 
comfort than Colonel Smith. 

"It did not escape the observation of the division that no 



62 Thomas Kilby Smith 

oflficer was more constantly or actively employed, or more 
efficient in the discharge of the duties assigned him, than he. 

' ' At the Post of Arkansas, Colonel Smith led the brigade 
and commanded it in the fight — certainly with equal gal- 
lantry with any officer in the field and with all the skill 
which the position involved or the occasion called for, or 
which any other officer exercised. 

' ' Our intercourse with him since he has been in command 
of the brigade, has commanded our respect and confidence 
in him as an officer, our esteem and regard for him as a gen- 
tleman, and our interest for him as our friend. Whilst in 
other divisions numerous high promotions of officers, very 
far Colonel Smith's juniors in rank, have been made (made, 
no doubt, for services performed, yet which it was never our 
fortune to observe or hear of) we have to suggest, yet with- 
out complaint, that we believe but one promotion in our old 
division, has been made — that of Colonel Stuart, 55th Illinois, 
who was but recently made Brigadier. 

' ' We are proud (though personally we may suffer tempor- 
arily as a consequence) to believe and know that we are not 
overlooked because our division is comparatively deficient in 
merit, but rather because our commanding general insists 
upon a higher and worthier standard of qualifications, than 
obtains in the volunteer service of the country, east or west. 
We accept it not only, but conform to it cheerfull}^ and will 
abide our own time, and the result of our achievements. 

' ' Yet we respectfully urge, that our commanding officer, 
in whose behalf we respectfully solicit, his, and our com- 
manding general's recommendation, quite comes up to the 
standard which he has himself by his recommendations 
established, and far surpassed that which is, and has been 
accepted in most of the promotions made, at least, from the 
Western Army. 

' ' These considerations (amongst others) expressed as con- 
cisely as we can, have induced the undersigned officers of the 
Second Brigade in the Second Division of your Army Corps 
to solicit you to ask the promotion of Colonel Smith, or to 
forward with your favorable endorsement, through the proper 
military channel, this our communication, which in that 



Memoir 63 

event we pray ma}-^ be accepted as our representation and re- 
quest of the President of the United States. 

' ' We are very respectfully, 

" Your obed'tServ'ts." 

This paper was signed by all the regimental ofl&cers of the 
command. 

General Stuart endorses this memorial as follows : 

"Headquarters 2d Div., 

" 5th March, 1863. 

" I cordially endorse the within recommendation of the 
ofl&cers of Colonel Smith's brigade. In my ofiScial report of 
the battle at Post of Arkansas, I remarked Colonel Smith's 
gallantry, and suggested his promotion. 

" I think he has fairly earned it, and is entitled to it. 

" Numbers of his juniors (certainly no more entitled to the 
distinction) have been advanced and I earnestly hope he may 
speedily be. 

" (Signed) D. Stuart, 

"Brig.-Genl. Comdg." 

General Sherman follows : 

" I have on several occasions borne special testimony to 
the gallantry and bravery of Col. T. Kilby Smith, 54th Ohio, 
— in my reports of the battle of Shiloh, of our several engage- 
ments as we approached Corinth, during our marches to 
Memphis, to the Tallahatchie, and finally at Vicksburg and 
Arkansas Post. And in a special communication to the 
Secretary of War, I made special recommendation for the 
promotion of Colonel Smith. 

" I am conscious my old division is impressed with the 
belief that I have not pushed forward their claims to promo- 
tion as other commanders have done ; but all must feel that 
I have urged one and all to acquire knowledge and experi- 
ence of war ; and that such knowledge was more valuable to 
them than mere rank. 

" The war in which we are engaged is no holiday aflfair, 



64 Thomas Kilby Smith 

but all worthy, ambitious and educated officers will have 
ample time and opportunity to attain rank equal to their 
expectations, and my ambition is to assist those under my 
command to acquire that knowledge and proficiency in their 
profession, without which promotion brings no pleasure or 
satisfaction to the officer. 

" With these explanatory remarks, I add my hearty ap- 
proval and sanction to this paper. 

" (Signed) W. T. Sherman, 

" Maj.-Genl. Com'd'g 
" 15th Army Corps." 

And finally General Grant added his own testimony : 

" Headquarters, Department oe Tennessee, 

" Before Vicksburg, March 10, 1863. 

" Respectfully forwarded to Headquarters of the Army. 
Besides the high recommendations Col. T. Kilby Smith has 
from his Division Comdr. and those serving under him, I am 
pleased to add my testimonial to his activity, energy, and 
ability as a soldier. 

' ' His advancement has been won upon the field of battle, 
and in camp in disciplining his men. Promotion en Colonel 
Smith would be most worthily bestowed, and would not fall 
upon one with whom the question would become : ' What 
will you do with him ? ' 

" (Signed) U. S. Grant, 



" Official 
" (Signed) Jno. A. Rawlins, 

" Asst. Adjt. General." 



Maj.-Gen. 



This paper had gone forward to Washington, and Colonel 
Smith no doubt waited with expectant hope the results of 
this powerful appeal in his behalf. His disappointment and 
chagrin may be imagined when, on the 24th of May, but 
forty-eight hours after he had led his soldiers in a terrific 
assault, he was superseded by General J. A. J. Lightburn, 
by General Sherman's orders. His feelings show themselves 
in the following note at once addressed to Sherman : 



Memoir 65 

" Hdqrs. 2D Brigade, 2d Div., Fifteenth Army Corps, 
" In the Field, May 24, 1863. 
"Sir: 

" Your orders assigning General lyightburn to the com- 
mand of the Second Brigade, is this moment received. At 
this time it is of vital interest to me to know if the order re- 
lieving me can be construed as a reflection upon my conduct 
of the command or my personal bearing in the late engage- 
ment. I hope you will not deem the question coming from 
me to you impertinent. I have the honor to be respectfully, 
' ' Your obt. servt. , 

" Thomas Kilby Smith, 
Col. Comd'g. 
" Major-General Sherman, 

" Comd'g Fifteenth Army Corps." 

General Sherman instantly sent the following reply : 

" May 24, Wai,nuT Hills. 

" Col. T. Kilby Smith, 

" Comd'g Second Brigade. 
" Dear Colonel : 

" I have just received your note. Most undoubtedly is 
this assignment of General Lightburn no reflection on you 
personally. He is assigned by order of Gen, Grant to me. 
His Legal Rank compels me to give him a brigade. General 
Lightburn is in your division and is entitled by law to one 
of the two brigades commanded by you and Giles A. Smith. 
The brigade of the latter belongs to his brother, Morgan L. 
Smith, who may join at any moment ; indeed, has notified 
me that he will in less than three weeks. Instead of reflect- 
ing on you, I would prefer to add substantial honors on you, 
and I doubt not General Lightburn will in a great measure 
rely on you to aid him in fighting it during the siege of 
Vicksburg. Lightburn reported before the assault and I 
w^aited till it was over, when I had to assign him to a com- 
mand. 

" Yrs. truly, 

" W. T. Sherman, 
" Maj.-Gen." 



66 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Certainly, nothing could be handsomer or more soldierly 
than this letter shows General Sherman's conduct to have 
been ; and the peculiar delicacy of his compliment in waiting 
until after the assault had been made, showed the sincerity 
of his feeling. None the less, the blow was a heavy one to 
Colonel Smith. His own regiment had been diminished by 
the casualties of war until its numbers had fallen below the 
limit fixed by a recent order for its maintenance as a separate 
organization. After his gallant services in the field and his 
long and arduous discipline in camp, he found himself liable 
at any moment to be turned adrift, much as his friend Gen- 
eral Stuart was shortly afterwards. His feeling during this 
period was expressed in a letter which he wrote to his old- 
time preceptor and friend, Salmon P. Chase, who was then 
Secretary of the Treasury : 

" Headquarters 2D Brigade, 2D Div., 15TH A. C, 

"Camp before Vicksburg, April 27, 1863. 
" My Dear Sir : 

' ' Permit me to call your attention to the enclosed corre- 
spondence with reference to the accompanying order ' from 
the Secr'y of War, not that I propose to intrude upon you a 
discussion of Army matters but that I may indicate how im- 
mediately I am afifected by the order and its results to my 
command. 

" I have the assurance from my friends that you have 
taken an interest in my promotion, and feel satisfied that 
when you become aware, that unless I receive an appoint- 
ment from the President I shall necessarily be forced from 
the service, that interest will not abate. Upon a former 
occasion I promised you that if I was enabled to take the field 
you should hear from me. I can only point to the official 
reports of my commanding generals, ' Shiloh,' ' Russell's 
House,' ' Chickasaw Bluffs,' ' Arkansas Post.' The casual- 
ties of battle, skirmish, and an active campaign have reduced 
the ' 54th Ohio, ' and brought it within the rule, and though 
for a 3^ear past at intervals, and for four months continuously, 
I have been in command of a brigade of five regiments, once, 

' For the consolidation of regiments. 



Memoir 



67 



in battle, of a division, I am to-day liable to be mustered out. 
" I am identified with the Second Brigade. I am satisfied 
its soldiers wish me to lead them, a fact of which the papers 
on file at headquarters in Washington, and the enclosed copy 
of a paper signed by the entire command will furnish evi- 
dence. I forward the latter ior your consideration though as 
it was wholly unmilitary I ordered it suppressed when it 
came to my knowledge. It is my hope and ambition to lead 
them to victory, but my duty as a soldier teaches me to obey 
my superior officers in tacit submission. The order first ex- 
pelHng me, will speedily operate upon other, and more 
worthy officers— already I note in dejected countenances the 
disappointed hopes of many a gallant war-worn veteran. 

" When I offered my sword to my country, it was with the 
determination that it should not be sheathed, till her honor 
was redeemed, and the rights of her loyal citizens vindicated. 
For twenty months I have done her service to the best of my 
humble abilities, and in all that time have never asked or 
received leave of absence, or for any cause been an hour from 
my post. I should not now become a supplicant for the 
privilege of wearing her livery, were it not that I deem it es- 
sential in some degree to her interests. I stifle indignation, 
and as I must write to some friend of power, and influence 
with the President, for ancient memories' sake, I call on you. 
Pardon my trespass upon your time also sacred to our country. 
If I have reason to expect the appointment of Brigadier Gen- 
eral, and the assignment to my present command, that will 
naturally follow, I can pursue with renewed hope my career 
here, sufficiently arduous at this season in the bayou and 
swamp— if the contrary, will you advise me of the fact soon, 
for if worthless to the Republic, the remainder of my life 
may be of value to my family, and should not be liable to 
sacrifice as a camp follower. With the most profound re- 
spect, I have the honor to be, 

" Always your sincere friend and obt. servt., 

" Thos. Kilby Smith, 
" Col. commanding 2d Brigade, 
" 2d Division, 15th A. C. 
" Hon. S. P. Chase, 

" Secretary of the Treasury." 



68 Thomas Kilby Smith 

In this crisis of his career, his mother followed him with 
anxious thought. She corresponded with Generals Grant 
and Sherman and addressed herself to Secretary Chase, to 
Senator Sherman, Secretary Stanton, and to the President 
himself. She had anticipated the danger that had arisen 
from the order for consolidating regiments, and had written 
to General Sherman on the subject. His reply to her letter 
was as follows : 

" Headquarters Fifteenth Army Corps, 

" Walnut Hii,i,s, May 25, 1863. 
" Mrs. E1.IZA B. Smith, 

" Yellow Springs, Ohio. 

" Dear Madam : 

' ' Yours of May 8th, overtook me here. The order for con- 
solidating regiments has been very properly suspended by 
General Grant and is made exceptional : that is, only such 
regiments will be reduced to battalions as corps commanders 
recommend. I know that none should be so reduced, but 
the ranks of all should be filled with conscripts and the old 
regiments thereby revived and their History kept up. 

" Your son commanded his troops up to yesterday, when 
the arrival of General I^ightburn, promoted by the last ses- 
sion of Congress, was assigned to me, and I was compelled 
by that law which all must obey to give him a brigade. I 
regret this exceedingly, and have, both in writing and 
verbally, explained it fully to Kilby. Of course he feels 
naturally very sore at retiring from the superior command 
of a brigade to that of his small regiment ; but there is no 
help for it. He asked last night for a leave or to resign. 
This would be wrong, and I advised him strenuously against 
it, at all events, till Vicksburg is gained. Then I promise to 
use my influence with General Grant to get him orders to 
proceed to Ohio and enlist enough men to fill up his old 
regiment. 

" I certainly will do all I can privately and officially to 
promote his interests, and will watch his career with an in- 
terest second only to that of his own family. I am pleased 
to note that you are acquainted with Mrs. Sherman, but our 
children are at that age that requires her personal care, so 



Memoir 6q 

that I fear she will not find it convenient to accept your kind 
invitation to the Springs, yet she can do as she likes. 

" I write on a Battle Field, with the rattle of musketry and 
roar of cannon in my ears, and I feel assured you will pardon 
the haste in which I reply to you. 

" With respect and affection, yrs., 

" W. T. Sherman, 
"Maj.-Gen." 

General Grant showed his warm interest by assigning 
Colonel Smith to a special and important duty pending the 
results of the application made to Washington. So that, 
although he no longer commanded troops during the re- 
mainder of the operations in front of Vicksburg, he was re- 
heved of the mortification of taking a less important serAice 
than that he had hitherto been entrusted with ; and as no 
further assaults were made but only the regular processes of 
a tedious seige were carried on, he escaped some arduous 
duty without diminution of credit. He was assigned to the 
staff of General Grant. On the 25th of May, by special 
order from General Grant, he organized a court of inquiry, 
of which he was President, and I^ieut.-Col. Thomas McMa- 
hon. Judge Advocate, which was in session at Milliken's 
Bend, I^a., from the ist to the 17th of June, 1863. While on 
duty at that place, an attack was made on Milliken's Bend 
by the Confederate General, J. G. Walker. It so happened 
that this important point was defended by negro troops, and 
the object of the attack was to demorahze the troops of Gen- 
eral Grant from the rear and divert his attack from Vicksburg. 
Although at first the black troops were considerably con- 
fused, they soon recovered themselves and repulsed the 
attack handsomely. As soon as Admiral Porter heard of the 
affair, he went up in his flag ship Black Hawk, and reported 
the circumstance to General Grant. The conduct of the post 
was severely criticised in a communication of Captain A. G. 
Strickle, Commissioner, who, under date of June 9th, wrote 
to General Grant : 

" It is with feehngs of regret that I have to communicate 
to you the sad intelligence of the loss of at least one hundred 



70 Thomas Kilby Smith 

of our white and black troops ; but while it is painful to re- 
cord this butchery, it is a pleasure to know that they stood 
firm while they had commanders, and that three fourths of 
the African troops that were slain, were found in the ditch 
where they were ordered to make their stand. . . . It is 
proper here to say that Col. Thomas Kilby Smith and the 
other members of the Court of Inquiry, that happened to be 
here engaged in examining the case of Col. I. F. Shepard, 
have rendered essential services on this occasion, and, had 
their counsel been heeded, perhaps many lives would have 
been saved, and nearly an entire rout of the enemy been the 
result. . . The capacity of the negro to defend his 

liberty, and his susceptibility to appreciate the power of 
motives in the place of the last, have been put to such a test 
under our observation, as to be beyond further doubt." * 

The gallantry of the African troops in this affair, and the 
heavy slaughter, aroused a great sensation throughout the 
country. It was reported by Colonel Smith that the enemy 
attacked them bearing a flag with the skull and cross-bones, 
and it was further currently reported that they showed no 
quarter and had inflicted tortures upon some of the white 
officers whom they had captured. These reports having 
been brought to the notice of General Grant, he determined 
to send a special message by flag of truce to the Confederate 
General, Richard Taj^lor at Delhi, La. , and selected Colonel 
T. Kilby Smith and Colonel John Riggin to bear his missive. 
In the course of his note he says : 

" I feel no inclination to retaliate for the offences of irre- 
sponsible persons ; but if it is the policy of any general en- 
trusted with the command of any troops, to show ' no 
quarter, ' or to punish with death persons taken in battle, I 
will accept the issue. . . . Hoping there may be some 
mistake in the evidence furnished me, I remain, etc." " 

General Taylor, under date of June 27, 1863, disclaims any 
knowledge of any such improper and unmilitary conduct, 
and promises an investigation. 

On his return from this expedition, Colonel Smith remained 

^ War Records, series i., vol. xxiv., part ii., p. 456. 
* Ibid., iii., p. 425. 



Memoir 7 1 

on staff duty with General Grant until the 2d of July, when 
he was ordered to proceed with despatches and verbal com- 
munications from that General to Gen. N. P. Banks, com- 
manding the Department of the Gulf, and then investing 
Port Hudson. This service he performed, bearing the fol- 
lowing letter : 

" Hdqrs. Department of the Tennessee, 

"Near Vicksburg, Juue 30, 1863. 
" Major-Gen. N. P. Banks, 

" Comd'g Department of the Gulf. 
" General : 

" Feeling a great anxiety to learn the situation at Port 
Hudson, I send Colonel Kilby Smith to communicate with 
you. Colonel Smith has been here during the entire siege 
of Vicksburg and can inform you fully on the position of 
affairs at this place. I confidently expected that Vicksburg 
would be in our possession before this, leaving me able to 
send you any forces that might be required against Port 
Hudson. . . . Hoping soon to hear favorable news from 
your field operations by the return of Colonel Smith, I re- 
main, 

' ' Very respectfully your obedient servant, 

"U. S. Grant.'" 

It fell to his lot to communicate to General Banks the in- 
telligence of the surrender of Vicksburg ; whereupon Gen- 
eral Gardner, who commanded the Confederate forces in 
that stronghold, capitulated. On the 9th of July, Colonel 
Smith started on his return to Vicksburg bearing des- 
patches from General Banks. 

On the 4th of July, Vicksburg surrendered, and Grant's 
greatest triumph up to that date, and probably the greatest 
military exploit of his career, had been brought to a success- 
ful conclusion. As all readers of the history of the Civil 
War know, the problem he had to solve, was the prevention 
of a junction of the Confederate army under Gen. Jos. John- 
son with that of General Pemberton, which was garrisoning 
Vicksburg. He failed, as Sherman had failed before him, to 

' War Records, series i., vol. xsiv., part iii., p. 451. 



72 Thomas Kilby Smith 

take the works by assault ; but, more successful than Sher- 
man, he so manoeuvred his army in the campaign between 
May 6th and May 22d, as effectually to separate Johnson 
from Pemberton ; and, having completely beleaguered the 
city, it was but a question of time when it had to capitulate. 
He writes on the very day of the surrender as follows : 

" Hdqrs. Department oe the Tennessee, 

" Near Vicksbxjrg, July 4, 1863. 
" Maj.-Gen. N. P. Banks, 

" Comd'g Department of the Gulf. 
" General : 

" The garrison of Vicksburg surrendered this morning. 
Number of prisoners as given by the officers, is 27,000; field 
artillery, 128 pieces, and a large number of siege guns, prob- 
ably not less than eighty. The other stores will probably 
not amount to any great deal. I held all my surplus troops 
out on Big Black River, and between there and Haynes 
Bluff". Intending to assault in a few days, I directed that 
they be kept in readiness to move on the shortest notice to 
attack Johnson. The moment the surrender of Vicksburg 
was agreed upon, the order was given and the troops are 
now in motion. General Sherman goes in command of this 
expedition. His force is so large I think it cannot fail. This 
move will have the effect of keeping Johnson from detaching 
a portion of his force for the relief of Port Hudson. Although 
I had the garrison of Vicksburg completely in my power, I 
gave them the privilege of being paroled at this place ; the 
officers to retain their side arms and private baggage ; and 
field, staff, and cavalry officers to take with them one horse 
each. I regard the terms really more favorable than an un- 
conditional surrender. It leaves the transports and troops 
for immediate use. At the present juncture of affairs in 
the East, and on the river above here, this maj^ prove of vast 
importance. I hope. General, and from what Admiral Porter 
tells me, this probably will find you in possession of Port 
Hudson.' " I am. General, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

"U. S. Grant." 

' Ibid., p. 470. 



Memoir 73 

The following letter of General Sherman, conveying his 
congratulations, shows an enthusiasm not frequent in his 
correspondence . 

" Camp on Bear Creek, 

"July 4, 1863. 
" Major- General Grant, 
" My Dear Gknerai, : 

" The telegraph has just announced to me that Vicks- 
burg is ours. ... I can hardly contain myself Surely 
will I not punish any soldier for being " unco happy " this 
most glorious anniversary of the birth of a nation, whose 
sire and father was a Washington. Did I not know the 
honesty, modesty, and purity of your nature, I would be 
tempted to follow the examples of my standard enemies of 
the press, in indulging in wanton flattery ; but as a man and 
a soldier, and ardent friend of yours, I warn you against the 
incense of flattery that will fill our land from one extreme to 
the other. Be natural, and yourself, and this glittering 
flattery will be as the passing breeze of the sea on a warm 
summer day. To me the delicacy with which you have 
treated a brave but deluded enemy, is more eloquent than 
the most gorgeous oratory of an Kverett. 

" This is a day of jubilee ; a day of rejoicing to the faith- 
ful, and I would like to hear the cheers of my old and patient 
troops, but I must a Gradgrind. I must have facts, knocks, 
and must go on. Already are my orders out to give one big 
huzzah and sling the knapsack for new fields. ... I 
did want rest, but I ask nothing until the Mississippi River 
is ours. . . . Though in the back ground, as I ever wish 
to be in civil war, I feel that I have labored some to secure 
this glorious result. 

' ' I am, with respect, your friend, 

" W. T. Sherman." 

And thus he writes to Admiral Porter on the same day : 
" No event in my life could have given me more personal 
pride or pleasure than to have met you to-day on the wharf 
at Vicksburg on the 4th of July, so eloquent in events as to 
need no words or stimulants to elevate its importance. 



74 Thomas Kilby Smith 

* ' I can appreciate the intense satisfaction you must feel to 
be lying before the very monster which has defied us with 
such deep and malignant hatred and seeing your once dis- 
united fleet again a unit ; and, better still, the chain that 
made an enclosed sea of a link in the great river, broken 
forever. In so magnificent a result, I stop not to count who 
did it : it is done, and the day of our nation's birth is conse- 
crated and baptized anew, and a victory won by the united 
Navy and Army of our country. 

" God grant that the harmony and mutual respect that 
exists between our respective commanders and shared by all 
the true men of the joint service may continue forever and 
serve to elevate our national character threatened with ship- 
wreck. Thus, I muse as I sit in my solitary camp out in the 
woods, far from the point for which we have j ointlj^ striven so 
long and so well ; and though personal curiosity would 
tempt me to go and see the frowning batteries and sunken 
pits that have defied us so long, and sent to their silent 
graves so many of our early comrades in the enterprise, I 
feel that other tasks lie before me and time must not be 
lost. . . .'" 

While his friend and chief was thus rejoicing over the 
capture of Vicksburg, Colonel Kilby Smith had the pleasure 
of witnessing the capitulation of Port Hudson. General 
Banks had besieged this point almost as long as Grant had 
Vicksburg. He had twice endeavored to carry the works 
by assault, but with no greater success than Sherman and 
Grant had met with in their efforts. He had therefore laid 
close siege, and was making preparations for another assault, 
when the news was brought by Col. Kilby Smith that Vicks- 
burg had surrendered. The last hope was thus taken away 
from the beleaguered garrison, who had already been reduced 
to great stress by the failure of their provisions, and they 
surrendered with the honors of war. Gen. Banks had the 
supreme satisfaction of announcing the surrender of Port 
Hudson in the following letter: 

' War Records, vol. xxiv., part iii., pp. 472, 473. 



Memoir 75 

"Before Port Hudson, i^a., July 8, 1863. 
** Major-General Grant, 
" My dear General : 

" It gives me pleasure to inform you that Port Hudson 
surrendered this day. I was unable to determine the num- 
ber of prisoners or the extent of the army. The commis- 
sioners ask for six thousand rations. The surrender is in 
effect unconditional. I declined to stipulate for the parol of 
ofl&cers or men, but necessity will compel me to parol at once 
a considerable proportion of the prisoners, selecting those 
representing States mainly in our control : as L/Ouisiana, 
Arkansas, etc. 

' * Twelve thousand or fifteen thousand of the enemy have 
been threatening my communications and they occupy the 
La Fourche districts. I shall move against them forthwith. 

' ' My disposable force is about equal to their number if I 
detain General Grierson's cavalry. This I hope to do for a 
term of not more than two weeks, when I will return him in 
good condition to your camp. He has been of infinite ser- 
vice, and I know not in what way I could have supplied his 
place. My thanks are due to Lieutenant (H. A.) Ulfiers for 
valuable services. He is a patient, sound, intelligent, and 
patriotic oflScer. He returns with Colonel (T. K.) Smith. 

' ' The enemy in my rear disposed of, I earnestly desire to 
move into Texas, which is now denuded of troops. The 
enemy here is largely composed of Texans, and we hope to 
capture them. Will it be possible for you to spare me for 
this expedition (which should be closed in two months from 
this date) a division of ten thousand or twelve thousand 
men ? I know the claims upon your forces ; I see that you 
will hope to strengthen our armies in the West, and propose 
my request with hesitation ; but there is no point where the 
same number of men could do so much good. I want Wes- 
tern men. It was my hope to join you in the contest before 
Vicksburg and strengthen your command with what forces 
I have, but it was impossible. 

" Colonel Smith, who brought me the welcome message 
from you, has remained at my command to convey to you 
in return the news of the surrender or capture of Port Hud- 



76 Thomas Kilby Smith 

son, wiiich could not have been deferred longer than to-mor- 
row. His visit has given me the greatest pleasure. His 
eflfective destruction of the boats and other means of crossing 
the Mississippi which the enemy possessed, has been of the 
greatest service to us and the cause. 
' ' I hope he may return safely to you. 
" I am, General, with great respect, 

' ' Your obt. servant, 

" N. P. Banks, 
" Maj.-Gen. Comdg." ' 

On his way to Port Hudson from Vicksburg, Colonel Smith 
had caused the destruction of a large number of boats, used 
by the enemy at Natchez. It was for this service that Gen- 
eral Banks gives credit in his letter. 

On the nth of July, Colonel Smith returned to head- 
quarters at Vicksburg, but on his way observed that a large 
number of cattle had been collected at Natchez for the use 
of the rebel army, — a fact that he reported to General Grant, 
who promptly organized an expedition under General Ran- 
som to bring them in for the use of the Union troops. General 
Grant writes to General Banks, under date of July nth : 

" I also ordered on the strength of Colonel Smith's report, 
about one thousand men to Natchez to hold that place for a 
few days and to collect the cattle that had been crossing 
there for the rebel army. ' ' ^ 

' War Records, series i., vol. xxvi., part i., p. 624. 

' Ibid., p. 500. 

" Natchez, Miss., July 14, 1863. 
" General B. H. GrieRSON, 

" Comd'g, etc. 
" My dear Generai, : 

" I have just written a hasty note to General Banks. We are in 
occupation of Natchez and ought to have been here twenty-four hours 
sooner, whereby we should have saved a train of 300 wagons with 
ordnance stores. As it is, we have captured some thousands of cattle, 
variously estimated from 3000 to 8000. 

" General Ransom is in command, one brigade, say 1200 men, — too 
small for this place. 

"The General is doing splendidly. If you could arrange in any 
way to get a troop here, you would be doing very great service, — 



Memoir jj 

On the 1 2th of July, Colonel Smith occupied Natchez with 
troops under command of Brigadier-General Ransom. The 
expedition resulted in the seizure of five thousand head of 
cattle, twelve hundred sheep, and ordnance and ordnance 
stores. By order of General Grant, he remained in Natchez 
twenty-one days ; returning to Vicksburg on the 3d of 
August, he was engaged on staff duty with General Grant 
as an acting aide-de-camp till August 13th, when by special 
orders, he proceeded to New Orleans as bearer of despatches 
from the General-in-Chief to Major-Gen. N. P. Banks, com- 
manding the Department of the Gulf. 

On the 26th of September, 1863, Colonel Smith received 
his long looked for appointment by the President as Brigadier- 
General of Volunteers in the service of the United States; 
whereupon the following special orders were issued : 

almost inestimable service. I spoke of you and for you to General 
Grant ; said all that you wanted me to say. I wisli you could get 
up on some of the transports we send out with cattle, say the Imperial. 
She is a splendid boat ; put 100 on her anyhow. It is of the last im- 
portance that you should have a command here soon. 

" I have not written upon the subject of cavalry to General Banks. 
You must show him this letter so that he will understand. Don't do 
anything to cripple his movements. 

" Respectfully and most truly yours, 

"Thos. Kii,by Smith. 
" Col. and Act'g Aid-de-Camp." ' 
' War Rec, series i., vol. xxiv., part iii., p. 511. 

" Hdqrs. Department oe the Gui,f, 19TH A. C, 

" New OrIvEans, 18 July, 1863. 
" My Dear Coi<onel : 

" I thank you for the note which I rec'd by the steamer Imperial. 
It gladdened the sight of our people to see a steamer from above 
Vicksburg ; 'the river is open, indeed,' they said. I hope I may have 
time to visit you when we will talk over the military expedition of 
the future. I am glad you think of it with interest. 

" We look for the defeat of Johnston's army by Grant, and then, if 
the news holds good from the Army of the Potomac, the backbone of 
the rebellion will be broken. I congratulate you on the auspicious 
future. 

" Very truly yours, as ever, 

" N. P. Banks, M.G." 



yS l^homas Kilby Smith 

Special Orders ") 
No. 237. ) 

" Hdqrs. Department oe the Tennessee, 

" ViCKSBURG, Miss., Aug. 30, 1863. 

" Col. Thos. Kilby Smith, 54th Regiment, Ohio Infantry 
Volunteers, having been appointed by the President as 
Brigadier-General of Volunteers to rank as such from 
August II, 1863, and having accepted said appointment on 
the 26th day of August, 1863, is hereby honorably discharged 
from the service as Colonel of said Regiment, to take efifect 
on the day of said acceptance. 

" By order of Major-Gen. U. S. Grant, 

"Jno. a. Rawlins, 
" Asst. Adjt. Gen. 
" Brigadier-General Thos. Kii,by Smith." * 

' As this order marked the final detachment of General Smith from 
his first command, and as the fortunes of war separated them for the 
greater part of the remaining years of the Rebellion, it is thought of 
interest to give the following sketch of the history of the 54th Ohio 
Volunteer Infantry, to whose discipline in camp Colonel Smith had 
given so much energy, and with whom he had shared so many of the 
perils of the campaigns : 

The material composing the 54th Regiment was from Allen, 
Auglaize, Butler, Cuyahoga, Green, Hamilton, I/Ogan, and Preble 
Counties. The Regiment went into the field on the 17th of Febru- 
ary, 1862, with an aggregate of 850 men. It reached Paducah, Ky,, 
on the 2oth, and was assigned to a brigade in the division of General 
Sherman. On the 6th of March, the command ascended the Tennes- 
see River to Pittsburg Landing and encamped near Shiloh Church, 
The Regiment took part in the battles of 6th and 7th April, and in 
the two days fighting lost 198 men, killed, wounded, and missing. On 
the 29th of April it moved in the Army against Corinth, participating 
in all the fighting, and when the place was evacuated, was the first 
organized body of troops to enter the town. After several short ex- 
peditions it accompanied General Sherman to Chickasaw Bayou, and 
was in the engagements of December 28th and 29th in which it lost 
twenty men, killed and wounded. It was next at the capture of 
Arkansas Post, after which it proceeded to Young's Point, La., and 
was employed in digging a canal, and other demonstrations connected 
with the siege of Vicksburg. On the 6th of May, 1863, it began its 
march to the rear of Vicksburg, by way of Grand Gulf, and took part 
in the battles of Champion Hills and Big Black Bridge. It was en- 



Memoir 79 

Why this appointment was made to date from the nth of 
August, and not from the 22d of May, for services rendered 

gaged in a general assault on the enemy's works on the 19th and 22d 
of May, losing in the two engagements forty-seven, killed and 
wounded. It was almost continually employed in skirmishing and 
fatigue duty during the siege of Vicksburg, and after the fall of that 
stronghold, it moved with the army on Jackson, Miss., skirmishing 
constantly from the 9th to the 14th of July. In October, 1863, it 
proceeded with the Fifteenth Army Corps to Memphis, and from 
there moved to Chattanooga. It took part in the battle of Missionary 
Ridge, November 26th, and the next day moved to the relief of 
Knoxville, after which it returned to Chattanooga, and on the I2tli 
of January, 1864, it went into winter quarters at Larkensville, Ala. 

The 54th re-enlisted as Veterans on the 22d of January, and went 
home to Ohio on furlough. It returned to camp in April with 200 
recruits and entered in the Atlanta campaign on the first of May. It 
took part in the battles of Resaca and Dallas, and was also in the 
skirmish at New Hope Church on the 7th of June. In the assault on 
Kennesaw Mountain, June 27th, it lost twenty-eight men, killed and 
wounded. On the 3d of July in a skirmish at Nickojack Creek, it 
lost thirteen men, killed and wounded, and in a battle on the east side 
of Atlanta, July 21st and 22d, it lost ninety-four, killed, wounded, and 
missing. It lost eight men, killed and wounded, at Ezra Chapel on 
the 28th, and from the 29th of July to the 27th of August, it was 
almost continually engaged in skirmishing before the works at At- 
lanta. It was in a heavy skirmish at Jonesboro, August 30th, and in 
a general action at the same place two days immediately following. 

On the 15th of November, the 54th started with Sherman on his 
famous " March to the Sea," and was engaged in the assault at Fort 
McAllister near Savannah. The Regiment assisted in the destruction 
of the Gulf Railroad, and on the 7th of January, 1865, marched into 
Savannah. It moved with the Army through the Carolinas, and par- 
ticipated in its last battle at Bentonville, May 21, 1865. The war was 
now virtually over, and the Regiment marched to Richmond, the 
Confederate Capitol, and from there to Washington, where it took 
part in the grand review. On the 2d of June it proceeded to Louis- 
ville, Ky., where it remained two weeks, when it was ordered to 
Arkansas. It performed garrison duty at Little Rock till Aug. 15th, 
when it was mustered out of service. 

" The aggregate strength of the Regiment at its muster out was 
255, — 24 officers and 231 men. It marched during its time of service 
a distance of 3,682 miles, participated in four sieges, nine severe 
skirmishes, fifteen general engagements, and sustained a loss of 506 
men, killed, wounded, and missing." — History of Logan County {O.), 
pp. 310, 311. 



8o Thomas Kilby Smith 

at Vicksburg, or even from an earlier date, might be asked. 
The real response would no doubt be, that among so many- 
gallant men and deserving oflScers, the President found it 
difl&cult to make his selections ; and, without special in- 
fluence, excepting that heretofore indicated, General Smith 
was fortunate to have received the recognition that finally 
came to him. It was a source of sincere pleasure to his 
commanding officers, as will appear from their own testimony. 
General Grant wrote almost immediately to his mother the 
following letter : 

" Vicksburg, Miss., August 28, 1863. 
" Mrs. Smith, 

" My Dear Madam : I have received two letters from 
you heretofore, and told your son, T. Kilby Smith, that I 
should write to you in answer. But I am generally so busy 
with matters that I am bound to give attention to, that to 
this time I have neglected it. 

" I have just returned from a visit to the northern end of 
my department, and am happy to learn that in my absence 
Col. T. Kilby Smith has received the appointment of Brig. - 
Gen. in the Volunteer service. I congratulate you and him 
sincerely upon this promotion. You will believe me when I 
say sincerely, because it was on my recommendation that he 
has been promoted. I do not know that Colonel Smith was 
aware of my having recommended him for this appointment. 
At all events, I did not tell him so. 

" You will excuse me for writing a very short letter and 
a very uninteresting one, except for the announcement it 
makes. 

' ' Believe me most sincerely the friend of yourself and your 
son, with whom I have become intimately acquainted, and 
to say that acquaintance with him only ripens friendship. 

" U. S. Grant, 
" Maj.-Gen." 

General Sherman himself brought the news of his promo- 
tion to the soldiers of his old brigade, but for the immediate 



Memoir 8 1 

present, the newly made Brigadier ' continued in close associ- 
ation with General Grant. 

On the 28th of August, General Grant, accompanied by a 
number of ofl&cers on his staff, including General Kilby 
Smith, proceeded to New Orleans, where he reviewed the 
troops and inspected the fortifications of Fort Jackson and 
Fort St. Philip. It was during this visit that General Grant 
met with an accident that might have cost him his life. 
While returning from a review of the troops held outside of 
the city, and riding at a very high rate of speed, he met 
with an obstruction and fell with his horse in the road. For 
sometime afterwards he was a great sufferer, and did not 
fully recover for a number of weeks. On the i6th of Sep- 
tember, General Smith, by special orders from General 
Grant, was directed to report to Major-General McPherson, 
commanding the Seventeenth Army Corps. His personal 
preference at another time would have been no doubt for his 
old soldiers ; but the appointment of General lyightburn pre- 
cluded this, and he found great satisfaction in being placed 
under the immediate command of General McPherson, with 
whom his relations were always of a most friendly character. 
The General assigned him to the command of the Second 
Brigade of the First Division of the Army of the Tennessee, 
then stationed at Natchez. This brigade comprised the 
following regiments: viz., nth Illinois, Major Geo. C. 
McKee ; 14th Wisconsin, Major Asa Wordin ; 17th Wis- 
consin, lyieut.-Col. Thos. F. McMahon ; 7 2d Illinois, Lieut. - 
Col. Jos. Stockton ; 95th Illinois, Lieut. -Col. Leander 
Blanden. He remained in command of this brigade at that 
post but a very short time, but long enough to make many 
friends and to show his capacity for the administration of 
martial law in a military district. On the 20th of October, 

' " U. S. MlWTARY TEI^EGRAPH, 

"Aug. 25, 1863. 
" By Telegraph from Sherman's 25, 86. 
" To Gen. Kilby Smith : 

" I congratulate you. Shall carry up your message myself to your 
old brigade. " W. T. Sherman, 

"Maj.-Genl." 
6 



82 Thomas Kilby Smith 

lie was relieved of the command of the Second Brigade and 
First Division, and transferred to the Fourth Division, com- 
manded by Gen. M. M. Crocker, being assigned to the First 
Brigade thereof. His first order indicated the feeling with 
which he was actuated throughout the war ; it explains 
itself : 

"General Orders "> 
" No. I. J 

" Hdqrs. First Brig., 4Th Div., 17TH A. C, 
" Department oe the Tennessee, 

" ViCKSBURG, Oct. 26, 1863. 

" The General commanding the brigade is pained to see 
that many of the beautiful forest trees that adorn this en- 
campment, have been cut ; some of them in the wanton spirit 
of destruction. Hereafter no trees will be felled without 
special orders. Fuel in ample abundance for warmth or 
cooking will be furnished by regimental quartermasters. 
Fences, out-houses, property of any description must not be 
depredated, and unoffending people who are without protec- 
tion, save that afforded by our soldiers, appeal to our sym- 
pathies. It is believed that the chivalry of every true soldier 
will not permit his sympathies in vain to be appealed to. 

" War has its laws as well as peace. Save by military 
rule, the rights of person and property are sacred : sacred 
here on the soil of Mississippi, as near your peaceful homes 
in the far West. Remember, it is not women and children, 
nor States, upon whom the Government is making war ; but 
the traitors who compose the rebel army and their adherents. 
It is for the soldiers of the Government who have perilled 
their lives and pledged their fortunes and honor for the 
maintenance of law and order, to set an example to the 
rebels who have sought to overturn all and bring anarchy 
and confusion upon the land. To teach them that in the 
true consciousness of power and victory we can exercise a 
wise and just forbearance. 

' ' The vile followers who invest the camps, whether in the 
guise of soldiers or otherwise, who are detected in trespassing 
upon the rights of citizens in person or property, will be 
summarily dealt with. Good soldiers who suffer in reputa- 



Memoir 83 

tion, and are scandalized by their conduct, are enjoined to 
bring them to justice. 

" By order of Brig. -Gen. Thos. Kilby Smith, 

" WiLWAM Warner, 
"A. A. A. Gen." 

General Smith remained in active field service at Natchez 
and on the Black and Yazoo Rivers till February, 1864, 
when, with his command, he took part in the Meridian ex- 
pedition in command of General Sherman. 

The object of the Meridian expedition was to break up the 
enemy's railroad connections and thereby to demoralize their 
armies, in that theatre of campaign. Meridian was a railroad 
centre of great importance. General Sherman's plan was to 
march straight for this point, where he expected to be joined 
by the cavalry under command of Gen. W. Sooy Smith, and 
be governed by the situation at that time as to his further 
movements. He accordingly took three divisions of the 
Sixteenth Army Corps, and three of the Seventeenth, making 
an aggregate of more than thirty-eight thousand men, and 
marched from Vicksburg on the 3d of February in two col- 
umns. The Sixteenth Army Corps was commanded by Gen. 
Stephen A. Hurlbut ; the Seventeenth, by Major-Gen. 
James B. McPherson, and in the Seventeenth, was the 
Fourth Division of General Crocker, whose three brigades 
were commanded respectively by Brig. -Gen. Thomas Kilby 
Smith, Col. Cyrus Hall, and Brig.-Gen. Walter Q. Gresham ; 
the cavalry brigade was commanded by Col. Edward F. 
Winslow. General Smith's brigade was composed of the 
41st Illinois, Lieut. -Col. John H. Nale ; the 53d Illinois, 
Major Rolland H. Ellison ; the 3d Iowa, Major George W. 
Cressley ; the 33d Wisconsin, Col. Jonathan B. Moore. 
General Sherman says in his report : 

" My object was to break up the enemy's railroads at and 
about Meridian, and to do the enemy as much damage as 
possible in the month of February, and to be prepared by the 
ist of March to assist General Banks in a similar dash at the 
Red River country^ especially Shreveport ; the whole to re- 
sult in widening our domain along the Mississippi River, 



84 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and thereby set the troops, hitherto necessary to guard the 
river, free for other military purposes. My plan of action 
was as follows : Gen. Wm. Sooy Smith to move from Mem- 
phis by or before the ist of February with an effective force 
of seven thousand cavalry, lightly equipped, to march 
straight on Pontotoc, Okolana, Columbus Junction (Artesa) 
and Meridian ; to arrive there about Februar>^ loth, distance 
two hundred and fifty miles ; to disregard all minor objects, 
to destroy railroads, bridges, corn not wanted, and strike 
quick and well every enemy that should offer opposition ; 
while I, with four divisions of infantry and cavalrj^ would 
at the same time move from Vicksburg on the same objective 
points, one hundred and fifty miles distant. When met at 
Meridian, being present in person, I could then order anew 
according to the then circumstances, condition of roads and 
time left at my disposal." ' 

General W. S. Smith's movement was not successful : he 
started late, and met with so much opposition that he gave 
up the effort to meet Sherman at Meridian, much to that 
oflScer's discontent, as appears by the report. Sherman's 
own movement, he says, ' ' was successful in an eminent de- 
gree. . . . We met no opposition till General Hurlbut's 
head of column reached Joe Davis's plantation, and General 
McPherson the Champion Hills. The 5th was one continu- 
ous skirmish for eighteen miles, but we did not allow the 
enemy's cavalry to impede our march, but got into Jackson 
that night on his heels, whipping him handsomely and 
utterly disconcerting his plans. . . . Pushing on speedily 
and rapidl3% the army reached Meridian on the 14th of Feb- 
ruary, and on the 15th and i6th he made a thorough destruc- 
tion from the roads centering at Meridian. For five days, 
ten thousand men worked hard and with a will in that work 
of destruction ; with axes, crow bars, sledges, and with fire, 
and I have no hesitation in pronouncing the work as well 
done. Meridian with its depots, storehouses, arsenal, hos- 
pitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments, no longer exists. ' ' * 

After accomplishing this work of destruction, Sherman 
returned leisurely to Vicksburg, where his forces were 

' War Records, vol. xxxii., part i., p. 175. ^ Ibid., p. 176. 



Memoir 85 

assembled by the 6tli of March. This expedition tested the 
endurance of the army on the march, and no doubt in- 
fluenced General Sherman in his opinion of its capacity to 
stand the long march to the sea which he carried out some 
months later. He says : 

"... the great result attained is the hardihood and 
confidence imparted to the command, which is now better 
fitted for war. Animals and men returned to Vicksburg 
after a march of from three hundred and sixty to four hun- 
dred and fiftj^ miles, in the space of the shortest month of 
the year, in better health and condition than when we 
started." ' 

As there was no conflict beyond skirmishing of any great 
dignity, the casualties of this campaign were but nominal, 
considering the number of men engaged, being but one hun- 
dred and seventy in all. 

It will be remembered that early in the war, the French 
Emperor, conjointly with England and Austria, planned the 
establishment of an empire in Mexico, and French troops 
had been sent to subjugate that country to Maximilian. 
This threatened the southern frontier of the United States, 
and was an object of unceasing distrust and protest to the 
Government at Washington. It had long been the thought 
of General Banks, and at the headquarters of the Army at 
Washington, that it was desirable for the Union to obtain a 
stronger foothold than it possessed in the State of Texas. 
General Halleck, in a letter to General Grant written as 
early as the 8th of January, 1864, says : 

" In regard to General Banks's campaign against Texas, 
it is proper to remark that it was undertaken less for military 
reasons than as a matter of State policy. As a military 
measure, simply, it perhaps presented less advantages than 
a movement on Mobile and the Alabama River, so as to 
threaten the enemy's interior lines and effect a diversion in 
favor of our armies at Chattanooga and in East Tennessee. 
But however this may have been, it was deemed necessary 
as a matter of political or State policy, connected with our 
foreign relations, and especially with France and Mexico, 
' Ibid., p. 177. 



86 Thomas Kilby S7nith 

that our troops should occupy and hold at least a portion of 
Texas. The President so considered for reasons satisfactory 
to himself and to his Cabinet, and it was therefore unneces- 
sary for us to inquire whether or not the troops could have 
been employed elsewhere with greater military advantage. 
I allude to this matter here as it may have an important in- 
fluence on your projected operations during the present 
winter. 

" Keeping in mind that General Banks's operations in 
Texas, either on the Gulf coast or by the Louisiana frontier 
must be continued during the winter, it is to be considered 
whether it will not be better to direct our efforts at present 
to the entire breaking up of the rebel forces west of the Mis- 
sissippi River, rather than to divide them by operating 
against Mobile and the Alabama. If the forces of Smith, 
Price, and Magruder could be so scattered or broken as to 
enable Steele and Banks to occupy Red River as a line of 
defence, a part of their armies would probably become avail- 
able for operations elsewhere. 

" General Banks reports his present force as inadequate 
for the defence of his position and for operations in the in- 
terior. General Steele is of opinion that he cannot advance 
beyond the Arkansas or Sabine, unless he can be certain of 
co-operation and supplies on Red River. Under these cir- 
cumstances it is worth considering, whether such forces as 
Sherman can move down the Mississippi River should co- 
operate with the armies of Steele and Banks on the west 
side." ' 

And prior to this, as early as the 6th of August, 1863, 
Halleck sent the following order to General Grant : 

" Please send a special messenger to Major-General Banks, 
with the following telegram, and also give him all necessary 
assistance for its execution : 

" ' Major-General Banks, 
" ' New Orleans, 

There are important reasons why our flag should be 
restored in some point of Texas with the least possible delay. 
' Report of the Cofidud of the War, vol. ii., p. 135. 



Memoir 87 

Do this by land, at Galveston or Indianola, or at any other 
point 5'ou may deem preferable. If by sea, Admiral Farra- 
gut will co-operate. There are reasons why the movement 
should be as prompt as possible. 

" ' H. W. Halleck, 
" 'General-in-Chief.' " 

This dispatch was deemed of sufficient importance to be 
sent to General Banks by the hand of Colonel Kilby Smith, 
and Banks, acknowledging it, says : 

" Measures have been already taken to carry into effect 
your orders. I shall plant the flag in Texas within a week, 
I hope. My plan has been to move against Galveston from 
the land side. . . . We shall be ready, I think, as soon 
as General Grant's corps can reach us. . . . No move- 
ment can be made from the Gulf against Galveston with a 
certainty of success. . . . The enemy fear only an attack 
from the land via Niblet's Bluflf, the route I propose, or 
Alexandria." ' 

Halleck replies under date of August loth : 

" In my opinion, neither Indianola or Galveston is the 
proper point to attack. If it is necessary, as urged by 
Seward, that the flag be restored to some one point in 
Texas, that can be best and most safely effected by a com- 
bined military and naval movement up the Red River to 
Alexandria, Natchitoches or Shreveport, and a military 
occupation of Northern Texas." '^ 

In pursuance of the first plan, General Banks sent an ex- 
pedition into Texas under Major-General Franklin against 
Sabine Pass. It was, however, unsuccessful. Subsequently, 
he endeavored to make a movement into the Teche country 
towards Opolousas, Alexandria, and Shreveport, but, he 
says : 

' ' It was in the month of September ; there was no water, 
it involved a march of three hundred miles ; it was absolutely 
beyond human power to make that march in that season 
with wagon transportation. " ' • 

' Ibid., pp. loi, 102. ''■ Ibid., p. 103. ^ Ibid., 4. 



88 Thomas Kilby Smith 

This, therefore, was given up. Subsequently, he occupied 
Brownsville, on the Rio Grande, and directed operations 
towards Galveston. While engaged in this operation, he 
received a despatch from General Halleck, stating : 

" All the Western generals were in favor of a movement 
directly upon Shreveport and operations against Texas from 
that direction, and that as I knew, he himself had always 
been of that opinion." ' 

General Banks then caused a memorial to be prepared by 
Major D. C. Houston, of the Engineer Corps, indicating the 
preparations necessary for the expedition to Shreveport. 
These suggestions were to the following effect : 

' ' First, that all the troops west of the Mississippi should 
be concentrated for that purpose ; 

' * Second, that they should all be put under the command 
of one general ; 

" Third, that considering the uncertainty of the naviga- 
tion of the Red River, a line of supplies should be estab- 
lished or preparations made for it independent of water 
communications ; and, 

" Fourth, preparation should be made for a long campaign 
so that if we reached Shreveport without encountering the 
enemy, and he receded from Shreveport, we would be able to 
follow him ; the military being of the opinion that it was 
necessary to disperse or destroy that army, and not merely 
to take the place and hold it. " " 

General Banks goes on to state that he was instructed by 
the Government to communicate with General Steele and 
General Sherman, and that everything was left to his dis- 
cretion in that way. This complicated his position. He 
was not under the command of either Steele or Sherman, nor 
were they under his, though he states he would have acted 
under either with perfect satisfaction. On the 5th or 7th 
of March, General Banks's forces were to leave Berwick Bay, 
ten days' march from Alexandria on Red River, where it 
was appointed for him to meet Sherman's soldiers, and Steele 
was to come with his troops in Arkansas and join his brother 

• Ibid., 5. 

' Report of Com. on Con. of War, General Banks's Testimony, p. 5. 



Memoir 89 

generals at Grand Ecore on the Red River. This was only 
an understanding, and, as will subsequently appear, through 
no fault of Steele's was not carried out. 

General Sherman, 'vith characteristic promptitude, ordered 
details to be made from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Army 
Corps, (ten thousand men in all) divided into two divisions, 
the detachments of the Sixteenth Corps being under the 
command of Brig. -Gen. Joseph A. Mower, those of the Seven- 
teenth under Brig. -Gen. Thos. Kilby Smith ; the whole de- 
tachment from the Army of the Tennessee being commanded 
by Brig. -Gen. A. J. Smith. These soldiers and their ofl&cers 
had but just returned from the expedition to Meridian. 
They were in high spirits, and veterans. General Sherman 
only lent this fine body of soldiers to Banks for thirty days, 
as he was then contemplating his movement on Atlanta, and 
it was thought that they could complete the expedition to 
Shreveport within that time. Banks, himself, reached 
Alexandria on the 24th of March, but his troops did not 
arrive until the 26th, eight days later than he expected. 
The army thus gathered at Alexandria was under command 
of Banks; A. J. Smith, though essentially independent, acting 
in subordination to him. An important part of the expedi- 
tion was that assigned to the fleet under Admiral Porter, 
which was to ascend the Red River and take part in the re- 
duction of Fort De Russy, and then proceed to Alexandria. 
General Sherman's plan was to follow the enemy toward 
Shreveport while Porter's fleet with transports bearing stores, 
should ascend the river and meet the army at that point. 

On the 7th of March, 1864, by special order No. 63, from 
Major-General McPherson, General Kilby Smith had been 
assigned to the command of a division made up as follows : 
the 3d Iowa Infantry, Lieut. -Col. James Willis, command- 
ing ; 41st Illinois, Lieut. -Col. J. H. Nale, commanding ; 
33d Wisconsin, Col. J. B. Moore, commanding — forming a 
brigade under the command of Colonel Pugh, the 41st Illi- 
nois, senior officer, subsequently relieved by Col. J. B. 
Moore, of the 33d Wisconsin ; also, the 14th Wisconsin, 
Lieut. -Col. J. W. Polleys, commanding ; 95th Illinois, Col. 
T. W. Humphrey, commanding ; 8ist Illinois, Lieut. -Col. 



go Thomas Kilby Smith 

A. W. Rogers, commanding — forming a brigade under the 
command of Col. Lyman Ward of the 14th Wisconsin, senior 
officer ; also M company of the ist Missouri Light Artillery. 

General Kilby Smith's personal stajGf consisted of the fol- 
lowing officers : 

Capt. William Warner, Co. D, 33d Wisconsin Infantry, 
A.A.A.Gen. 

Capt. Wm. L. Scott, Co. F, 33d Wisconsin Infantry, 
A.A.A.Gen. 

Capt. John H. Wetmore, Co. H, 95th Illinois, A.D.C. 

Surgeon Charles Carle, 41st Illinois, Surgeon-in-Chief. 

Lieut. James H. Lukin, Co. F, 3d Iowa, A. A.D.C. 

Lieut. W. C. B. Gillespie, Adjutant 41st Illinois Infantry, 
A.A.Q.M. 

Gen. Kilby Smith wrote an informal, unofficial letter to 
General McPherson, which shows the operations of A. J. 
Smith's command to the i6th of March, as follows : 

" Hdqrs. Division, Seventeenth Army Corps,' 
"Red River Expedition, Fort De Russy, March 16, 1864. 

" Generai, : 

Agreeably to your request I have the honor to transmit 
unofficially brief statement of progress of the naval forces 
and General A. J. Smith's command in the Red River expe- 
dition to present date, 12 m. : the fleet of transports sailed 
from Vicksburg at 7 p.m. on Thursday, loth instant. The 
detachment I have the honor to command embarked on 
steamers Hastings, A7doa'at, John Rai7ie, and Diana. Ar- 
rived at the mouth of Red River and reported to Admiral 
Porter on Friday at noon. Saturday, 10 a.m. sailed up Red 
River and Atchafalaya, under orders and signals from flag- 
ship Btactz Hawtc, to Simmsport. Morning of Sunday de- 
barked my own command for inspection, review, and drill 
by regiments. At 7 p.m. received marching orders and at 
8 P.M. marched, bringing up the rear of the column ; re- 
paired bridges through the night. Roads for the most part 
bad and swampy, and bivouacked at 4 a.m. Monday, eight 
miles from Simmsport. Meanwhile General A. J. Smith, with 

' War Records, vol. xxxiv., part i., p. 376. 



Memoir 9 1 

General Mower's command, had reconnoitred the front, 
driven four regiments of the enemy from a fortification situ- 
ate some five miles from Simmsport, and was heading across 
country for Moreauville, on Bayou De Glaize. Gave my 
troops rest two hours. At 6 o'clock took up the line of 
march, moving forward rapidly till ii o'clock, when I halted, 
ordered coffee for the men and fed the animals. Meanwhile 
pioneers were reconstructing bridge by the enemy destroyed. 
At noon resumed march, which till this time has led us 
through a rich and highly cultivated country, past extensive 
corn-fields and sugar-houses. Now crossing the bayou and 
penetrating a swamp for a few miles, we suddenly emerged on 
one of the most beautiful prairies imaginable, high table-land, 
gently undulating, watered by little lakes, with occasional 
groves, the landscape dotted with tasteful houses, gardens and 
shrubberies. This prairie, called Avoyelles, is settled ex- 
clusively by French emigrants, many of whom, as our army 
passed, sought shelter under the tricolor of France. Push- 
ing forward rapidly, we gained Marksville at 5.30 p.m. 
Deserters had warned us that the enemy were on our left 
flank and rear as early as 3 o'clock. My troops were well 
closed. Two and a half miles beyond Marksville, at 5.30, 
I formed line of battle, my right resting immediately on the 
left of the advanced forces ; transportation and ambulances 
parked far to the rear. As my command came to front brisk 
musketry firing commenced at the fort ; some shells fell to 
the rear and right of my line. I was ordered by the general 
commanding to look well to my rear and left wing, that I 
might anticipate attack from Walker with six thousand 
Texans. At 6.30 news was brought me that the fort had 
surrendered. I threw out heavy pickets, stacked arms, and 
went into bivouac. 

" In summary, I may remark that on the 14th instant the 
command marched twenty-eight and a half miles, built a sub- 
stantial bridge sixty feet in length, repaired minor ones, and 
took a fort between sunrise and sunset. But one brigade (Col. 
W. C. Ward's [W. T. Shaw's ?], of Mower's command) was 
actively engaged. Their casualties were 2 killed, 33 wounded. 
The substantial results 334 prisoners, 24 officers (from lieuten- 



92 Thomas Kilby Smith 

ant-colonel to third lieutenant), large amount of commissary 
and ordnance, and ordnance stores, as per schedule I have the 
honor to transmit herewith. I also enclose draught ' of forti- 
fications and topographical map ' of country immediately 
circumjacent. Meanwhile convoy and fleet had made slow 
and devious way through the tortuous windings of the Red, 
whose navigation at present stage of water is diflScult. 
Rapid current, frequent eddies, sharp bends, and snags are 
the natural obstacles. To these the enemy had added rafts 
and spiles. As the fort surrendered the Black Hawk rounded 
to, and shortly afterward the general commanding received 
the congratulations of the admiral, who he will compliment 
by present of the 9-inch piece of the Indianola and the pieces 
of the Harriet Lane, recaptured. The quartermaster has no 
paint, however, and we shall not be able to repeat the in- 
scriptions of Haines BluflT 

" My command is in occupation of the fort, and will be 
engaged to-day and to-morrow in the demolition of the case- 
mates, bridges, etc. , and finally the blowing up of the maga- 
zine. The main body, under the command of General 
Mower, convoyed by Admiral Porter, sailed last night for 
Alexandria, where I expect to join them in three days. 
General A. J. Smith remains with me ; also the gunboat 
Benton, Captain Greer. My command is in excellent health 
and fine spirits ; deserve compliment for their steadiness, 
discipline, and marching qualities. Dispatch-boat waits my 
orders. I write hurriedly, or rather dictate from horseback. 
Shall hope to send very good account of my stewardship. 

' ' I meanwhile have the honor to be, with highest respect, 
your obedient servant and friend, 

" Thos. Kilby Smith, 
" Brigadier-General, Commanding. 
" Maj.-Gen. J. B. McPherson, 

" Comdg. Seventeenth Armj^ Corps, Vicksburg. 

"P. S. : — I send Colonel Nale with prisoners and dis- 
patches to Baton Rouge. Opportunity permitting, he will 
make written reports, filing them on his return. 

"Haste, "T. K. S." 

' Not found. 



Memoir 93 

After tlie capture of Fort De Russy and the assembling of 
the army at and about Alexandria, which, as has been said, 
was not fully completed till the 26th of March, by reason of 
the delay of Banks's immediate command, consisting of the 
Nineteenth and detachments of the Thirteenth Army Corps, 
General Banks planned to march on the inland roads towards 
Shreveport ; the fleet, meantime, to make its way up the Red 
River to Springfield at a distance of one hundred and ten 
miles from Shreveport, and there to communicate with the 
main body of the army. Prior to the arrival of Banks's 
troops, he had come in person to Alexandria, while A. J. 
Smith had busied himself by sending Mower on the 21st to 
capture a post of the enemy at Henderson's Hill, a brilliant 
affair in which that officer had been entirely successful, cap- 
turing almost the entire force of the enemy, some two hun- 
dred and fifty men, with their horses and four guns. After 
this affair, A. J. Smith's command had proceeded as far as 
Bayou Rapide, twenty-one miles beyond Alexandria, in the 
direction of Shreveport. In pursuance of the general plan, 
General Kilby Smith's division was assigned as an escort 
to the fleet, and therefore had no part in operations of the 
main body of the army until a later date. Banks's com- 
mand was weakened by the necessity of returning three 
thousand men composing the marine brigade with their ves- 
sels to General McPherson at Vicksburg, where they were 
needed for the special duty of guarding the Mississippi 
River from raids. This force was really not needed under 
the circumstances, inasmuch as the vessels were unable to 
pass the rapids of the Red River near Alexandria, which the 
fleet of Porter's heavier iron-clads had difficulty in ascend- 
ing. A depot of supplies was established at Alexandria, and 
the command of General Grover aggregating three thousand 
men, was left to protect it. Banks had with him, therefore, 
when he began to move forward from Alexandria, a force 
of about twenty thousand men. He anticipated aid from 
Steele, who had moved out from lyittle Rock to make his way 
across country to the rendezvous at or near Shreveport. 
Before the main body of troops had passed up the rapids 
on the 28th of March, a portion of Banks's column had 



94 Thomas Kilby Smith 

advanced to Natchitoches. The water in the river was 
continually falling and Banks was anticipating a reduction 
of his numbers by the withdrawal of General A. J. Smith's 
command, which as has been said had been promised him by 
Sherman for but thirty days. ^ The military situation at this 
time was far from satisfactory. Steele was at such a distance 
that it was impossible for Banks to communicate with him ex- 
cepting at long intervals ; the country through which his 
march lay was in large part heavily timbered with but a nar- 
row road through which wagons could pass each other only 
with great difficulty. His march into the interior separated 
him from the fleet of Porter, and the season was rapidly ad- 
vancing. General Grant was anxious to have the detach- 
ment of Sherman's men returned to him in order to become a 
part in the grand movement upon Atlanta, which was planned 
to take place simultaneously with that on Richmond ; and so 
earnest was the General-in-Chief in this behalf, that he dis- 
patched Banks word ' ' I had rather that the Red River ex- 
pedition had never been begun than that you should be 
detained one day beyond the first of May in commencing the 
movements east of the Mississippi. ' ' Meantime the Confed- 
erates were gathering their forces from Texas and Arkansas 
under Taylor, Price, Green and others, and had a force of 
about twenty-five thousand men in the various commands to 
bring against the Union advance. On the 6th of April Banks 
moved forward from Natchitoches to cover the one hundred 
miles that lay between him and Shreveport, with the com- 
mand of General Franklin in the advance, with General 
A. Iv. Lee's cavalry in the van followed by two divisions of 
the Thirteenth Army Corps under Ransom ; Emory followed 
Ransom with the First Division of the Nineteenth Corps. On 
the yth, A. J. Smith followed with the Sixteenth Corps. Skir- 
mishing had taken place with Confederates as early as the 2d. 
On the yth the advance of the army had passed Pleasant 
Hill, and at a distance of nine miles further came upon the 
Confederate army at Carroll's Plantation. On the 8th, Lee 
found himself at a clearing in the woods at a distance of 
three or four miles below Mansfield, called " Sabine Cross 
Roads, ' ' and here his further advance was blocked by the 



Memoir 95 

rebel trans-Mississippi army, fully twenty thousand strong. 
His position was a most critical one, with no infantry to 
support him, and having in his rear an enormous train of 
baggage wagons and artillery, in a country unfitted for the 
operations of cavalry. He was forced to give battle under 
most disadvantageous circumstances. He sent urgent request 
for support and infantry was moved forward by Franklin 
to aid him. About half-past four in the afternoon the Con- 
federate forces made so vehement an attack that the Union 
troops were compelled to fall back with heavy loss. About 
five in the afternoon the enemy turned lyCe's flanks and strik- 
ing his centre heavily, he was driven back upon his supply 
trains, and his way of retreat being blocked, he lost ten guns 
from Ransom's forces that had come to his aid, together with 
one thousand men captured and nearly all of his wagons filled 
with supplies. The retreat became a rout, and the whole 
command demoralized and panic-stricken, fled before the 
exultant foe. In order to understand the situation, it must 
be remembered that Banks's army was scattered at too great 
a distance between the separate commands to enable them 
adequately to support each other. As the defeated forces of 
Lee and Ransom of Franklin's command, or what was left 
of them, rushed to the rear, they came upon the columns of 
Emory who had taken position at Pleasant Grove, three miles 
to the rear of Sabine Cross Roads, and as the defeated forces 
came upon his line, he opened to let them pass. The Con- 
federates pressed forward, but were met with so heavy and 
well-concentrated a fire, that they recoiled. Although the 
loss inflicted by them upon the Union forces was heavier 
than that which they sustained themselves, they met a severe 
check in their onward movement. When night fell. Banks 
thought best to fall back fifteen miles further to the rear to 
Pleasant Hill, reaching that point the following morning 
the 9th of April. Here he was joined by the forces of Gen- 
eral A. J. Smith and the whole command was united excepting 
the detachment on the Red River under command of General 
Kilby Smith, and the soldiers who had been left at Alexan- 
dria under Grover. Anticipating a continuance of the 
attack by the Confederates, the Union forces were disposed 



g6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

to receive them, and about noon an attack was made. During 
the afternoon the battle became animated, and when dark- 
ness closed, the Confederates were defeated, after a loss of 
many of their best ofiicers and men. After this success it 
was at first thought that the forward movement would be 
renewed, but after a conference with his officers, the com- 
manding general concluded that he could not successfully 
prosecute the object as first planned, and to the great disap- 
pointment of his troops, at least that portion of them under 
the command of A. J. Smith, he concluded to continue the 
retreat. In the severe battles on the yth, 8th, and 9th of 
April, he had lost in killed, wounded and missing nearly 
four thousand men, twenty pieces of artillery, one hundred 
and sixty wagons and many horses and mules. The retro- 
grade movement had a most disheartening effect upon his 
troops, who had lost all confidence in his capacity, while the 
forces of the Confederates, distributed by Taylor, their im- 
mediate commander, were actively harassing his every move- 
ment. In all probability. Banks adopted the wisest course 
in deciding to retreat, though he did so with a precipitation 
that was quite unnecessary. The waters of the Red River, 
instead of having risen as was customary at that season of 
the year, were obstinately falling, and in order to have 
reached Shreveport in the heart of the enemy's country, it 
was necessary to keep open a long line of communications. 
Even had he attained that point, it is doubtful whether his 
forces would have been adequate to have crushed the enemy 
under Kirby Smith's command, who were opposed to him. 
Of his personal courage and integrity there could be no 
doubt, but his incapacity for the command of large bodies of 
men in the field, had been made obvious and unless he had 
been immediately superseded and a competent soldier put in 
his place, it would have been, perhaps more hazardous to 
have advanced than to retreat. It is vain to speculate upon 
what might have been. The great expedition that had set 
forth with such high hopes and such splendid equipment, 
had become a disastrous failure, and nothing remained but 
to extricate the army and the fleet from the trap into which 
it had fallen. The main army, therefore, withdrew to the 
Red River at Grand Kcore. 



Me^noir 97 

While these untoward events were occurring to their com- 
rades, the command of General Kilby Smith on the trans- 
ports and Admiral Porter's fleet had made their way in 
obedience to their orders to Springfield landing at Loggy 
Bayou. Here their course was stayed by an obstruction in 
the river, — a sunken steamboat, the New Falls City, which 
stretched across the channel, loaded with mud, and which 
must have been removed to permit their further advance. 
While Admiral Porter and General Smith were debating on 
the course to take to remove this obstacle, word reached 
them of the defeat of the main army, with orders to fall back 
at once to Grand Kcore. The narrative of their adventures 
appears in the report of General Smith, which follows : 

" Hdqrs. Division, Seventeenth Army Corps,' 

" On Steamer Hastings, Grand Ecore, La., April 16, 1864. 

" Captain : 

" I respectfully submit the following report, in accordance 
with orders from General A. J. Smith, coinmanding Red 
River expedition : On the 7th instant I received the follow- 
ing order and letter of instructions from General A. J. Smith : 

" ' HEADQUARTERS RED RIVER EXPEDITION, 

" ' On Steamer Ci,ara Bei,i<, April 7, 1864. 

*• * Brig.-Gen. T. K. Smith, 

' ' ' Comdg. Division, Seventeenth Army Corps : 
** ' Generai, : 

" ' You will take charge of the river transportation be- 
longing to the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps, and 
will conduct it to the mouth of IvOggy Bayou, opposite 
Springfield, at the foot of I^ake Cannisnia, and will then, 
after a careful reconnoissance toward Springfield disembark 
one regiment and push it forward to Bayou Pierre, and hold 
the bridge at that point. On arriving at Mansfield I will 
endeavor to communicate with you at Springfield, and it 
may be send for supplies. From Mansfield you will receive 

' War Records, vol. xxxiv., part i., p. 379. 



98 Thomas Kilby Smith 

further orders in regard to your movement toward Shreve- 
port. 

" ' I am, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" ' A. J. Smith, 
" ' Brigadier- General, Commanding.' 

" With the letter of instructions I received a verbal order 
from General Smith to communicate with Rear-Admiral 
Porter previous to starting, and intimation to consult with 
him during the progress of the fleet. In obedience to orders, 
on the 7 th of April I embarked my command on the follow- 
ing steamboats : Hastings^ Emerald^ W. L. Ewing, Thos. E. 
Tutt, and the Sioux City, and the following boats reported 
to me for orders : Clara Bell, Liberty, Haviilton, J^. H. Lacy, 
Mars, Des Moi?ies, Adriatic, Southwester, and Diadem, and 
issued the following order : 

" Special Orders \ 
"No 21. J 
" Headquarte;rs Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, 
"Steamer Hastings, Grand Ecore, La., April 7, 1864. 

" I. The fleet will be prepared to sail at 11 a.m. in the 
following order : i, Hastings ; 2, Clara Bell ; 3, Emerald; 4, 
W. L. Ewing ; 5, Liberty ; 6, Haviiltoyi ; 7, y . H. Lacy ; 8, 
Thomas E. Tutt ; 9, Sioux City ; 10, Mars ; 11, Des Moiries ; 
12, Adriatic; 13, Southwester ; 14, Diadem. 

" The same orders and signals as heretofore will be en- 
forced and strictly followed. 

" Col. J. B. Moore, commanding First Brigade, will 
furnish a company, properly officered, to each of the follow- 
ing boats as a guard : Clara Bell, Liberty, Ha7nilton, and J . 
H. Lacy. Col. L. M. Ward, commanding Second Brigade, 
will furni.sh a like guard to the steamers Mars, Des Moi7ies, 
Adriatic, Southwester, and Diadem. 

" The officers in command of the guard will be held 
strictly accountable for the conduct of their men. The 
guard to be divided into proper reliefs, and must not take 
off" their accoutrements while on guard. None of the trans- 
ports will land or troops debark, except by order of the com- 
manding general or brigade commanders. 



Memoir 99 



"At I P.M. the fleet sailed and arrived at Campti at 5 
P.M., when the following order was issued : 

•' Special Orders ) 
"No. 22. ) 

" Headquarters Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, 

"Campti, La., April 7, 1864. 

" I. Whenever the fleet lands for the night, Col. J. B. 
Moore, commanding First Brigade, will throw out a strong 
picket on the bank, covering the fleet from the steamer 
Hastings to the steamer Thomas E. Ttdt. Colonel L. M. 
Ward, commanding Second Brigade, will establish a like 
picket, covering all the fleet in the rear of the steamer 
Thomas E. Tiitt, his line joining that of Colonel Moore. 
The pickets will be posted under the direction of the brigade 
officer of the day. The pickets will be instructed to come in 
at the signal for starting — one long whistle. 

" II. The order of inarch is modified as follows : Clara 
Bell will move in the extreme rear of the fleet, under con- 
voy of the gunboat Chillicothe, and will report to the com- 
manding officer of the same for orders. 

" III. The following boats that have not reported for 
orders will sail immediately in rear of the fleet in the follow- 
ing order: i, Rob Roy; 2, Iberville; 3, yohn Warner; 4, 
Universe; 5, Colonel Cowles ; 6, Meteor. 

" IV. The Black Hawk, General Banks's headquarters 
boat, will move immediately in rear of the steamer Hastings 
and as consort. Lieut. A. J. Boyington, 95th Illinois Volun- 
teers, will report with his company on board steamer Black 
Hawk as guard till further orders. 

" V. Col. J. B. Moore, commanding First Brigade, will 
furnish each of the following boats with a guard of at least 
twenty-five men, under command of a commissioned ofl&cer : 
Rob Roy, Iberville, John Warner, and Universe. Colonel ly. 
M. Ward, commanding Second Brigade, will furnish each 
of the following boats with a like guard : Colonel Cowles^ 
Meteor, and Shreveport. 



lOO Thomas Kilby Smith 

" I also issued the following general order : 

"General Orders! 

" No. 7. i 

"Hdqrs. Division, Seventeisnth Army Corps, 
"Steamer Hastings, Campti, La., April 7, 1864. 

" Bach transport of the fleet will be governed by the sig- 
nals ordered by the rear-admiral commanding Mississippi 
squadron, a copy of which will be posted in the pilot-house. 
They will keep their position indicated in the order of march. 
If accident occurs to any boat, the fleet will stop till the 
necessary repairs are made. No boat will land for fuel or 
any purpose save by order, and transports will frequently 
communicate their condition and requirements to the com- 
manding general on the headquarters boat Hastings. The 
most rigid discipline will be enforced by military com- 
manders, not only upon the soldiers who guard the boats, 
but the crews and servants of the same, being careful, how- 
ever, to treat steamboat oflScers with courtesy, and avoiding 
improper interference with the navigation of the boats. 
Pillaging will not be countenanced, and oflScers will be held 
personally and strictly accountable for their commands. 

" Attention is directed to special orders No. 21, prohibit- 
ing the landing of soldiers without orders, and the same 
order will apply to the officers, crews, and servants of the 
boats. 



" Learning from scouts at Campti, that the enemy was in 
the vicinity, I ordered Colonel Moore to send a regiment to 
reconnoitre. The result of their reconnoissance was advices 
that the enemy passed up the river rapidly. 

" April 8th, got under way at 10.30 a.m., being delayed by 
the Iberville getting aground and the necessity of relieving 
her of a portion of her cargo, she drawing at that time six 
feet six inches. Arrived at Coushatta Point at 6 p.m., and 
learning that the enemy were at or near the chute, six miles 
above by water and three miles by land, I ordered Colonel 
Ward to debark his brigade and proceed to Coushatta Chute, 
with instructions to keep up communication with me through 



Memoir lOi 

the night, and be prepared to re-embark at that place in the 
morning. The enemy retired before them, and during the 
night two prisoners were sent in ; one Capt. Richard S. 
Venables, detached to burn cotton. April 9th, got under way 
at 9 A.M. Shortly after re-embarked Colonel Ward's com- 
mand and arrived at Nine-Mile Bend at 5.30 p.m. On the 8th 
and 9th, we heard rumors of the battle, but mostly going to 
show that the enemy were defeated and in full retreat. April 
loth, got under way at 10 a.m., arriving at Loggy Bayou 
at 2 P.M. At that point the large steamboat New Falls City 
had been thrown across the river by the enemy, heavily 
loaded with mud, and sunk. Agreeably to our instructions, 
I immediately debarked troops for reconnoissance, and while 
placing my command receii'ed a verbal message, through 
Colonel Taylor, delivered by Captain Andrew, from General 
Banks, to return, the messenger at the same time announcing 
reverses at Mansfield. I consulted with Rear-Admiral 
Porter, and ordered the fleet to back down the river in the 
order the boats then lay, the rearmost boat to take the lead 
down stream and turn as the bayous and pockets of the 
stream might afford facility. The river was exceedingly 
narrow and tortuous, the bottom covered with logs and 
snags, and the banks full of drift, rendering the navigation 
most difl&cult and dangerous. In the course of the night I 
succeeded in getting the fleet turned, and, April nth, got 
fairly under way at 6.30 a.m., and arrived at Coushatta 
Chute at 8 p.m., meeting but trifling resistance from the 
enemy. Here I received the following written order : 

" On the Road, April 10, 1864. 
" ' Brig. -Gen. Kilby Smith, 

" ' Commanding Division Seventeenth Army Corps : 
" ' The general commanding directs that you return im- 
mediately to Grand Ecore with supply steamers and your 
entire command. Please report to him upon your arrival. 
" ' By command of Major-General Banks, 

" ' Geo. B. Drake, 
" ' Assistant Adjutant-General." 

' ' April 1 2th, sailed at 7 a. m. This day the navigation was 



I02 Thomas Kilby Smzik 

exceedingly difficult, and almost all of the transports were in 
a crippled condition, rudders unshipped and wheels broken. 
I felt it necessary to separate the fleet as much as possible 
to avoid collisions in turning the bends. Keeping the troop 
transports under my eye and control, the admiral having 
preceded me in the lead, I kept to the rear of the fleet. At 
12 M.the enemy began to appear in considerable numbers, and, 
firing on the Meteor, killed one man. Desultory firing was 
kept up continuously until, at 4 o'clock, the Hastings went 
under the bank on the south side of the river, near Pleasant 
Hill L^anding, to repair wheel, which had become unservice- 
able ; the Alice Vivian, a boat that had reported the day be- 
fore, lying midway in the stream, fast aground. The Black 
Hawk towing the gunboat Osage, the Vivian signalled for 
help. I ordered the Clara Bell to report to her. Clara Bell 
failing to move her, the Emerald was ordered to her. About 
this time the Rob Roy ran astern of the Black Hawk, and the 
enemy, a brigade about twelve hundred strong, with four 
field-pieces, commanded by General Green of Texas, formed 
upon the bank, putting their pieces in battery within point- 
blank range of the Hastings, the nearest boat. The Neosho ' 
and Lexington (gunboats) at this time were lying on the 
opposite bank, half a mile up. I ordered the Hastings to 
cast off", and just as we got under way the battery opened 
upon us, the first shot falling a little short, the others over 
us ; their practice was defective. Getting a good position 
upon the opposite shore I opened upon them with one section 
of Lieutenant Tiemayer's battery, one gun of which was 
mounted upon the hurricane deck of the Emerald, the siege 
guns, which were upon the forecastle of the Rob Roy, and 
the howitzer from the hurricane deck of the Black Hawk, the 
latter admirably handled by Colonel Abert, of General 
Banks's staff. We killed their battery horses and they 
changed position repeatedly, moving their guns up by hand. 
Meanwhile their sharpshooters had deployed up the river, 
and sheltered behind the cottonwoods that lined the banks 
immediately opposite the boats, from whence they poured in 
an incessant fire. My soldiers were all upon the hurricane 
' In another copy this appears as Osage. 



Memoir 103 

decks, protected by cotton bales, bales of hay, and sacks of 
oats, sujSicient barricade to rifle balls, enabling them to 
mark the enemy with deadly aim. After the fight com- 
menced the gunboat Neosho, that had been aground above, 
rounded the point and getting into position delivered canister 
from her heavy guns with great effect. The Lexington, 
Neosho, No. ij, and Hindman were not idle, and the bank 
for two miles up and down was swept with grape and canister. 
Before sundown we had silenced the enemy's batteries, and 
shortly after they fled from the field, leaving many dead, 
among them General Green, who had his head blown off, 
and who had behaved with great gallantry throughout the 
fight. Fortunately I had ordered all the transports below 
save the Clara Bell, Black Hawk, Eme^'ald, the Vivia7i 
(aground as before stated), and the Rob Roy. My loss, 
therefore, is incredibly small. Just at dark, under the direc- 
tion of the admiral, who below communicated with me by 
the dispatch-boat Gazelle, I ordered the transports down, 
and as time, particularly at night, was precious to me, and 
my responsibilities as to supplies, ordnance, and ordnance 
stores in the fleet great, I did not deem it proper to gather 
up the wounded, but left them with the dead to the care of 
the enemy, who I knew would be upon the ground after our 
departure. I kept the fleet under way until i a.m., when, 
from the darkness and grounding of boats, I ordered the fleet 
tied up. 

" April 13th, the John War^ier got aground in the middle 
of the stream and held the fleet all day. About 12 m. the 
enemy's forces under Liddell, upon the north bank of the 
river, planted their battery, 6-pounder field-pieces, upon a 
height commanding the fleet, and began to annoy us. The 
admiral had gone below, and communicating with Captain 
Selfridge, of the gunboat Osage, I went with him to a point 
below the fleet, from which he drove the enemy from posi- 
tion, as we supposed ; at all events, we silenced their bat- 
teries. At this time, the fleet had become crowded close 
together, under the blufi" of the south shore, v/herefrom they 
might be easily fired, and a vast deal of loose powder and 
fixed ammunition formed the cargo of many boats. It was 



I04 Thomas Kilby S^nith 

of the last importance to separate the fleet, therefore I 
ordered the Sioux City, with Colonel Humphrey's regiment 
on board, to lead the way and the sound transports to follow 
— that is, those I did not need for tow-boats ; for at that 
time many of the fleet were unmanageable from breaking of 
machinery. The Rob Roy was laden with siege guns and 
ammunition, a most valuable cargo, under charge of Major 
Houston, of General Banks's staff". Her rudder being broken 
and the boat being unmanageable, as represented by her 
officers, I ordered the Clara Bell a light side- wheel steamer, 
without cargo to take her in tow. Both the Sioux City and 
the Clara Bell, as they passed the point, were struck, but 
neither damaged, nor were there any lives lost. These, I 
believe, were the only boats fired into. The Osage went 
round the point, and the Hindman took her place. All that 
day and all night I labored to get the John Warner off; 
lightened her cargo, and tugged at her with the Iberville, 
Meteor, Rob Roy and such other boats as had power. At 
daylight of the 14th, I ordered the balance of the fleet down, 
leaving the yohn Warner in charge of the Hi?idman. Get- 
ting the boats to Campti, and there meeting General A. J. 
Smith, with a force, I went back for the Warner, and was 
glad to meet her a mile or two from Campti. The Hindman 
had got her off. 

" April 15th, lay all day by the Warner and Iberville, that 
were alternately on ground and swinging at the bars, and at 
midnight both boats getting clear, I ran with them down to 
this point, and have to report that notwithstanding difficult 
navigation the transports are all safe in port, without loss of 
cargo save less than a hundred sacks of oats, thrown over- 
board from the Universe, to make room for hard tack in re- 
lieving the Iberville. The following is the list of casualties.* 

" I desire to compliment, in this connection, for their 
steadiness of nerve under fire and prompt obedience to all 
orders, the following gentlemen, officers of the steamboat 
Hastings ; Capt. W. K. Houston, George Davis, First Mate ; 
Paul "Woodward, Second Mate ; and Robert Easley, Pilot. 
These deserve special mention, and their gallantry saved the 

' Nominal list (omitted) reports two killed and seventeen wounded. 



Memoir 105 

boats. Col. Moore, Col. Ward, and the ofl&cers and soldiers 
of this command without any exception, behaved with the 
greatest gallantry. I respectfully ask to be permitted to file, 
in a supplementary report, the reports of those officers when 
they shall be prepared. 

" N. B. — The distance from Grand Ecore to lyOggy Bayou 
is one hundred and ten miles. 

' ' I may also remark that the last battery we encountered 
was planted by Colonel (General) Liddell (said to command 
a force of from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred men) 
on a blufi" on the north side of the river. The fleet was 
huddled together. I had reason to expect an attack from 
the south side. Intervening between that part of the river 
and the bluff was White L,ake. Had I debarked the whole or 
any portion of my command to dislodge the battery I should 
not only have left the boats unguarded but should have been 
compelled to march six miles around the borders of this 
lake. I took all the circumstances under full consideration 
and determined to remain with the fleet. From information 
received since, and from the general results, I feel confident 
my course was the correct one. 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient 
servant, 

" Thos. Kilby Smith, 
" Brigadier-General, Commanding. 
" Captain Hough, 

" Assistant Adjutant-General." 

As the reports show, the position from which the admiral 
and General Kilby Smith finally extricated themselves, was 
one of the greatest peril. lyossing, in his history, after 
stating that a council of chief officers of the Nineteenth 
Corps, " upon the urgent recommendation of them all, and 
with the acquiescence of General Smith . . . determined 
to retire from Grand Ecore the following day, * to the great 
disappointment of the troops,' Banks said, ' who, flushed 
with success, were eager for another fight,' " says : 

' ' In the meantime, the command of T. Kilby Smith and 
the transports had reached Springfield I^anding at Loggy 



io6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Bayou, where the river was obstructed by a sunken steam- 
boat. Farther advance was not required, for word soon 
came of the disaster at Sabine Cross Roads, followed by an 
order from Pleasant Hill for the troops and flotilla to fall 
back to Grand Kcore as quickly as possible. Obedience was 
a diflScult task, for the troops so sorely smitten by Banks, 
were turning their attention to the capture or destruction of 
the vessels and troops above Grand Kcore. The banks of 
the river at the turns were now swarming with sharpshooters, 
the water was very low, and continually falling, and great 
labor was necessary in getting the vessels over the numerous 
bars and shoals. ' ' ' 

He then describes the attack made at Coushatta, and gives 
full credit to General Smith's command, and comments in a 
note : 

" In his report to the Secretary of the Navy on the 14th 
April, Admiral Porter claimed the entire credit of the repulse 
of the Confederates for himself and his command, and did 
not even mention the presence of Gen. T. Kilby Smith and 
his troops. ' ' 

The Admiral based his report perhaps on that of Lieut. - 
Comdr. Thomas O. Selfridge, who gives but scant credit to 
the part taken by the soldiers in the battle with Green, for 
he writes to the Admiral as follows : 

"United States Steamer Osage, 

"Grand Ecore, April 16, 1864, 
" Sir : 

' ' I have the honor to inform you, that while on my way 
down the river, having stopped at Blair's Plantation, some 
fifty miles above this point, after protecting the transport 
Alice Vivian, I was attacked by two brigades of dismounted 
cavalry and three pieces of artillery, the whole under the 
command of General Green, amounting to not less than 
twenty-five hundred men. I waited until they got within 
easy shelling range and opened upon them a heavy fire of 
shrapnel and canister. The rebels fought with unusual per- 
tinacity and for over an hour delivered the heaviest fire of 
' Ivossing, vol. ii., pp. 262, 263. 



Memoir 107 

musketry that I ever witnessed. They finally broke in great 
confusion, leaving the ground covered with the dead and 
wounded, muskets, haversacks, etc., for manj^ yards from 
the bank. Having received orders to join you without de- 
lay, I regret that I could not give the battlefield the inspec- 
tion that I desired. 

' ' From the statement of the wounded, and the appearance 
of the field, the loss of the enemy could not have been less 
than two hundred. General Green, who commanded, a 
colonel and a major, are known to have been killed. The 
Lexington (Commander Bache) came down shortly after the 
action commenced, and from his position below was able to 
pour in a most destructive enfilading fire that materially 
hastened the result. Company " A, " 95th Illinois, were on 
board, and did good execution. General Green will prove a 
great loss, he standing as one of the best generals this side 
of the Mississippi River. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" Thomas O. Selfridge, 

' ' Ivieutenant-Commander. ' ' ' 

But whatever may have been the inaccuracies or mistakes 
in the claims of the participants in these conflicts. Admiral 
Porter's own estimate of General Smith's services at that 
time he has placed in imperishable record. He wrote thus : 

" Mississippi Squadron, Fi<ag-Ship Cricket, 

" Off A1.BXANDRIA, LomsiANA, May 4, 1864. 
" Brig.-Gen. A. J. Smith, 

" Comdg. Div's Sixteenth and Seventeenth Army Corps, 
" Alexandria, La. 
' ' General : 

" I have been so engaged since my return to this place 
that I have not had the time to express to you the high ap- 
preciation I have of the services of that excellent and gallant 
of&cer, Brig.-Gen. Thomas Kilby Smith, who with a detach- 
ment of two thousand men, accompanied the transports in 
the expedition to Springfield Landing. 

" In that expedition we accomplished, under the most 
' Report of Committee on Conduct of the War, vol. ii., p. 253. 



io8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

difficult circumstances, all that was required of us, and, 
with a persevering enemy opposing us at almost every bend 
of the river, returned to Grand Ecore, very much against 
our will, without the loss of a particle of the material of war 
with which we started. 

' ' I cannot speak in too high praise of the manner in which 
General Smith managed his part of the expedition, doing 
everything in his power to make it successful, and co- 
operating in a way to give me the most entire satisfaction. 
It reminded me of the olden time, when the gallant soldiers 
of the Department of the Tennessee, guarded by the gun- 
boats, were pushing their way victoriously up the ever-to-be- 
remembered Arkansas River. We did not return this time 
with the same success, yet we went through scenes that 
tried men's mettle ; and the association of those exciting 
days will, no doubt, long be remembered by both of us. 
Nearly one hundred miles in the rear of our army, where we 
heard of its retreat back to Grand Kcore, and with a success- 
ful and indomitable foe ready to harass us at ever}^ step, 
everything was conducted as quietly as if we were still on 
our way to meet the enemy. We never realized, until we 
returned to Grand Ecore, that our army had returned dis- 
comfited to that place. 

' ' We reached Springfield I^anding, the place appointed to 
communicate with our forces under General Banks. The 
troops were all landed, and in another hour would have been 
on the march to Springfield, hoping to greet our friends as 
conquerors. Our disappointment was great when informed 
by a courier that our army had returned to Grand Ecore, 
and that all our perseverance and energy had been thrown 
away. 

" The fire of the enemy was exceedingly annoying on our 
return, but the soldiers treated it with indifference, exposing 
themselves on all occasions, and returning the fire with in- 
terest when fired into by the rebels. On the afternoon of 
the 1 2th of April, we were attacked, at a bad bend in the 
river, by a force of two thousand five hundred men, with 
two field-pieces, under the rebel General Green backed by 
a large force of five thousand, with three field-pieces. The 



Memoir 



109 



enemy attacked the rear of the transports, where there were 
two gunboats, one or two transports, and the Hastiyigs, with 
General Smith on board, bringing up the rear. The enemy- 
came in certain of victory ; but the gunboats and the Hast- 
ings, the Rob Roy, and one other, opened on them vigorously, 
and after an hour and a half of hard fighting, in which the 
fragile transports were much cut up, the enemy retreated in 
confusion, with the loss of their best general (Green), about 
twenty officers, and four hundred or five hundred men. In 
this action General Smith bore a conspicuous part, and, by 
his annoyance of the enemy, helped much to secure a victory, 
so important to us from the death of the rebel General Green, 
their most popular leader. From that time we were not so 
much molested, the five thousand men in reserve concluding 
it was best to let us alone. 

' ' At Campti some of the boats got aground, and, antici- 
pating further annoyance, I pushed on, and, as you know, 
requested you to send help to our exposed soldiers, which 
you promptly did. I regret that the help did not arrive 
quite in time to save a few lives, the enemy opening their 
batteries on the boats shortly after I left, which attack, I am 
informed, was coolly met, and the rebels driven away. 

' ' I hope it may be my good fortune to be associated with 
General Smith on some occasion where our exertions will 
meet with a better reward. Though we cannot lay claim to 
any great success, we can safely say we accomplished all that 
was required of us. 

' ' I hope you will commend this gallant officer to General 
Sherman, who delights to know those under his command 
who do their duty faithfully and gallantly. 

' ' With much respect, General, I remain very respectfully, 
your obedient servant, David D. Porter, 

" Rear- Admiral." ' 

When the fleet and army were re-united at Grand Ecore, 

further consultation was held as to the best course to adopt, 

and it was concluded wisest to continue the retreat. But this 

was more easily said than done. The heavy vessels of the 

' War Records, vol. xxxiv., part iii., p. 432. 



no Thomas Kilby Smith 

navy found it most diflScult to go over the sand-bars and shoal 
places, and to add to the embarrassment, one of the finest 
and largest iron-clads, the Eastport, being injured by the ex- 
plosion of a torpedo, sunk in the stream. Porter, who had 
proceeded down the river leaving the fleet in command of 
Captain Selfridge, returned with pump boats and made every 
effort to save this vessel, but finally it was discovered these 
efforts must be in vain, and she was blown up. On the 21st 
of April, the army was in full retreat toward Alexandria with 
the enemy harassing them whenever opportunity offered. 
The rear was brought up by Gen. A. J. Smith's column cov- 
ered by the command of Gen. Kilby Smith, who repulsed 
the enemy at Cloutierville. The whole retreat was a series 
of skirmishes and brisk engagements, but finally the army 
reached Alexandria without serious mishap. 

Porter was very apprehensive that he would be deserted 
by the army, and left to shift for himself at Grand Ecore, 
and in point of fact he had difl&culty and some severe fight- 
ing during which he behaved with the greatest gallantry in 
making his way to Alexandria. During the retreat his as- 
sociate in the previous adventures wrote him as follows : 

"Headquarters Seventeenth A. C, 

" CoTILl<E, April 25, 1864. 

" Admirai, : 

" Arrived at this point last night. General Banks and 
army are on the march to Alexandria. We brought up the 
rear and skirmished all the way. General Banks fought at 
the crossing of Cane River. Not much loss on either side. 
Our fight in the rear was sharp. Gen. A. J. Smith's com- 
mand is ordered peremptorily to Alexandria. Troops are 
now on the march. You will find the camp some two thou- 
sand strong on the opposite side. Their artillery does not 
amount to much. What they have we have crippled badly. 
Will communicate more fully from Alexandria by the gun- 
boats Osage and Pittsburgh, unless they get off before we 
arrive. General Smith and I both protest at being hurried 
away. We feel as if we were shamefully deserting 3'ou. If 
I had the power I would march my troops back to Calhoun, 



Memoir 1 1 1 

or wherever you might need us, if at all. I will try to get a 
communication to you from Gen. A. J. Smith. 
' ' Most respectfully and truly yours, 

' ' Thomas Kii^by Smith, 
"Brig. -Gen. Comdg.* 
" Rear- Admiral Porter, 

" Comdg. Mississippi Squadron." 

The Admiral says in his testimony before the Committee 
on the conduct of the war : 

" When I got to Alexandria I found the army in a great 
state of stampede. I did not see anything to be frightened 
at, but the army was going to clear out at once and go down 
the river. I told General Banks that that was out of the 
question, that we must do something to get the fleet down. ' ' * 

The situation, indeed, was a painful one. An immensely 
valuable fleet was above the Red River rapids penned up, 
and without any possibility of making their way down under 
existing conditions. To protect them there would require 
the army to remain stationary in a state of siege for an in- 
definite time, perhaps a year, and to destroy them would be 
to inflict a blow upon the Union cause in the southwest 
heavier than any it had yet received. In this predicament 
the genius and engineering skill of a western oflScer, L,ieut.- 
Col. Joseph Bailey of the 4th Wisconsin Regiment, who had 
had a successful experience in the neighborhood of Port 
Hudson in floating certain vessels that had grounded in one 
of the bayous by building a dam, suggested the expedient 
of damming the waters of the Red River. His expedient 
was immediately taken up by the army and the navy. Coal 
barges were sunk in the river and cribs filled with brick and 
ironwork (secured from the sugar mills) were built out to 
meet the barges. On the 8th of May, the work having been 
begun upon the ist, the dam was so far completed that the 
water had risen seven feet on the rapids and the gunboats 
Osage, Fort Hijidman and Neosho, with two other vessels, 
passed down. Before the others could get under way the 

' Report of Committee on Conduct of the War, vol. ii., p. 254. 
' Ibid., p. 279. 



112 Thomas Kilby Smith 

dam broke, but notwithstanding this discouragement, the 
work was repaired and strengthened and on the 12th, the 
vessels having been lightened, passed the obstacle in safety, 
and the fleet was saved to the Union. The army and navy, 
thus released from confinement, made their way as rapidly 
as possible to Simmsport, fighting the Confederates from 
time to time and always successfully. On the 20th of May, 
the expedition ended, the army crossed the Atchafalaya, and 
Banks handed over the command he had so unsuccessfully 
managed to the more competent hands of Gen. Edward R. 
S. Canby, who had been appointed his successor. Porter 
passed down the Red River nearly parallel with the march 
of the army and reached the Mississippi. While these events 
were occurring to Banks, Steele, who had started south- 
ward from lyittle Rock on the 23d of March, had pushed his 
way as far as Camden, about half way between I^ittle Rock 
and Shreveport. When he had heard of the news of the 
disaster to the Union troops at Sabine Cross Roads, he 
found his position dangerous, more especially as the Con- 
federate commander Kirby Smith had concentrated almost 
all his forces in the effort to crush him, and he therefore 
made a hasty retreat towards Little Rock, which he reached 
after fighting a severe battle at Jenkinson's Ferry, his troops 
exhausted by their experience. 

It will be noticed from the narrative of the Red River ex- 
pedition, that neither by Admiral Porter, whose patience had 
been sorely tried, nor by General Banks, with whom the 
soldiers of Sherman had never before served, is there any 
adverse criticism made of the conduct of A. J. Smith's com- 
mand in any part of the operations. General Banks, in his 
report, gives General Kilby Smith full credit for his manage- 
ment of his duties while protecting the fleet in his ascent to 
IvOggy Bayou, and its subsequent withdrawal to Grand 
Bcore, saying : 

" General Smith, who commanded the land forces and 
transports, is entitled to the highest commendation for the 
energy, skill, and success with which he managed this most 
difficult affair." ' 

* War Records, series i., vol. xxxiv., part i., p. 205. 



Memoir 113 

Admiral Porter criticised Banks with great severity in his 
communications with the naval department, and it seems 
but fair that Banks's explanations and counter criticisms 
should be considered. He remarks on Porter's statement 
that ' ' the retreat to Grand Kcore left me almost at the mercy 
of the enemy." 

" The Admiral's despatch does not mention the fact that 
in addition to the ' mercy ' of the enemy, he had the support 
of General T. Kilby Smith's division of two thousand five 
hundred men, whose most gallant and honorable part in the 
preservation of the fleet of gunboats and transports is not 
referred to in what the admiral calls ' this curious affair 
between the (enemy's) infantry and gunboats,' referring to 
General Green's attack at Coushatta, or, as it is sometimes 
called, Blair's Ivanding." 

General Banks avails himself, and quite naturally, of 
every explanation or extenuation for his failure. In his re- 
port he says : 

" The column of Gen. A. J. Smith was a partially inde- 
pendent command. General Sherman, in his despatch of 
the loth of April, received the i6th, informed me that the 
thirty days for which he had loaned me General Smith's com- 
mand would expire on the loth of April, the day after the 
battle of Pleasant Hill. General Smith's instructions, 
which he showed me, required him to confer constantly 
with Admiral Porter, the approved friend of the Army of 
the Tennessee. . . . He made no official reports of his 
forces or their operations. He was in no wise responsible 
for the results of the expedition, and may perhaps be said to 
have gained as much by its failure as he would by its suc- 
cess. When his thirty days were up he claimed the right at 
Grand Ecore to return to Vicksburg, irrespective of the con- 
dition of the army or the fleet, and did not consider himself 
at all responsible for the inevitable consequences of his with- 
drawal to the army or the navy, nor for that detention which 
their preservation demanded. That responsibility I was 
called upon to assume in written orders. I entertain no 
doubt that his official course was entirely consistent with his 
orders, and I cheerfully acknowledge the generous and 



114 Thomas Kilby Smith 

earnest efiforts of General Mower of the Sixteenth, and Gen- 
eral T. Kilby Smith, of the Seventeenth Corps, to infuse into 
the different corps that unity of spirit which is as essential 
to victory as the valor of the soldiers in actual battle. I 
gladly accord to the men of their commands the honor of 
having fought a desperate enemy superior in numbers, with 
as much gallantry and success as that which distinguished 
the troops of my immediate command. No higher praise 
than this can be given to any soldiers. Alexander's troops 
never fought better. ' ' ' The general then lays upon Frank- 
lin the responsibility for the movement on the advance of the 
army at Sabine Cross Roads, and states that the navy de- 
layed the advance of the army at Alexandria sixteen days 
and at Grand Ecore three days, and had detained the army 
ten days at Grand Kcore and eighteen days at Alexandria 
on its return. In closing his report, he says : 

" We owe nothing to the enemy, not even our defeat. 
Could any one of these difficulties have been avoided, the 
object of the campaign would have been accomplished. But 
the occupation of Shreveport could not have been main- 
tained. The presence of the enemy would have required 
such a force for its defence as could not have been supplied 
by the river, and for which no other arrangement had been 
made, as suggested in my despatch of the 30th of March. 
The only possible method of maintaining this position would 
have been to concentrate at this point a force superior in 
numbers to the enemy, with sufficient time to pursue him 
wherever he should move, even if he took us to Galveston, 
on the Gulf coast. This was suggested as a possible result 
of the campaign, but it was not embraced in the original 
plan, and was specially precluded by orders received from 
the lieutenant-general commanding the armies." ^ 

Gen. A. J. Smith's report is of course of interest, and 
throws some strong light upon these events. After describ- 
ing the battle at Pleasant Hill, and the successful result of 
his operations, he says : 

" The opinion of Major-General Banks as to the action 
of the command and its results may be gathered from his 

' V/ar Records, vol. xxxiv., part i., p. 217. ^ Ibid., p. 218. 



Memoir 1 1 5 

own words to me on the field just after the final charge. 
When riding up to me he remarked, shaking me by the 
hand, ' God ble.ss you, general, you have saved the army.' " 

He goes on to say, 

" About 12 o'clock on the night of the 9th I received 
orders from General Banks to have my command in readi- 
ness to move at 2 o'clock in the morning, and at that hour 
to withdraw them silently from the field and follow the 
Nineteenth Corps back to Grand Kcore, make such disposi- 
tion of my troops and trains as would enable me to repel an 
attack on the rear of the column. I represented to him that 
the dead of my command were not buried, and that I had 
not the means of transporting my wounded ; that many of the 
wounded had not yet been gathered in from the field and 
asked of him permission to remain until noon of the next 
day to give me an opportunity to bury my dead and leave 
the wounded as well provided for as the circumstances 
would permit. I also urged the fact that Gen. Thomas 
Kilby Smith's command, then thirty miles above on trans- 
ports in the river, would undoubtedly be captured and the 
transports lost if left to themselves. The permission to re- 
main was, however, refused and the order to move made 
peremptory. I therefore provided as well as possible for the 
wounded, left medical ofiicers to attend to them, and moved 
at the designated hour following the Nineteenth Corps. We 
reached Grand Ecore on the evening of the nth, no attack 
on the rear having been made by the enemy, and went into 
camp. On the evening of the 13th, nothing having been 
heard from a portion of our transports, save that they had 
been attacked by infantry and artillery upon both sides of 
the river, I marched up with two brigades of my command 
on the north bank of the river to help them through if pos- 
sible, crossing the river at Grand Ecore about 4 p.m. We 
reached Campti, twelve miles above, the same night and met 
a portion of the fleet there, they having by energy, good 
judgment, and rare good fortune, succeeded in running the 
batteries and land forces of the enemy without the loss of a 
boat, though some were completely riddled with shot. ' ' ' 
' War Records, vol. xxxiv., part i., pp. 309, 310. 



1 1 6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Describing the retreat from Grand Ecore to Alexandria, 
General Smith says : 

'■ From the day of our leaving Natchitoches, the enemy 
pushed the pursuit vigorously, the rear was skirmishing 
every day and nearly all night. Twice during the march we 
were obliged to form line and teach them a lesson. At 
Cloutierville, on the 23d, they charged the rear division 
(Gen. T. Kilby Smith's), but he repulsed them neatly and 
thoroughly after about an hour's fighting." 

In closing his report, he says : 

" I crossed the bridge on the 20th (May), bringing up 
the rear, and marched to Red River I^anding on the Missis- 
sippi River, whither our boats had been sent, and reported 
by order of Major-General Banks to Major-Gen. E. R. S. 
Canby, for further orders, and was by him directed to pro- 
ceed to Vicksburg with my command, which I did, reaching 
that place on the 23d of May, having been gone seventy-four 
days. The results of the expedition may be summed up as 
follows : I captured with my command 22 pieces of artillery, 
1757 prisoners and Fort De Russy, with a strong casemated 
battery, which the gunboats would not have been able to 
pass. My loss was 153 killed, 849 wounded, and 133 miss- 
ing, total 1 135 ; also one six-mule wagon. My entire com- 
mand numbered originally 9200. Of the general ofiicers 
attached to my command I cannot speak too highly. Brig.- 
Gen. (now Major-General) J. A. Mower, by his perception 
and prompt action at Fort De Russy, Henderson's Hill and 
Pleasant Hill, and by his gallantry and skill at Yellow Bayou 
near Simmport, May i8th, has won the right to high estimate 
and position in the annals of the war. Quick perception, 
ready courage and abundant vitality, added to skill and 
education, give him the power to sway men as if by mag- 
netism. Brig. -Gen. Thomas Kilby Smith, with excellent 
judgment and skill, brought the boats safel}^ through the 
intricacies and shoals of Red River back to Grand Ecore, 
although continually under fire. His repulse of the cavalry 
charge upon his division at Cloutierville, was well and 



Memoir 117 

neatly done. I commend him as a gallant ofi&cer and gen- 
tleman." ' 

In Confederate General Richard Taylor's report, referring 
to the battle in which General Green was killed, he says : 

" Several times the transports raised the white flag, but 
the gunboats, protected by their plating, kept up their fire 
and compelled our troops to renew the- punishment on the 
transports. Many times our sharpshooters compelled the 
gunboats to close their portholes, and it is believed that the 
result would have been the capture of the whole fleet but for 
the unfortunate fall of the noble Green, killed by a discharge 
of grape from one of the gunboats. Notwithstanding that 
this action took place within sound of Banks's army, now 
concentrated at Grand Ecore, such was the demoralization 
resulting from the defeats of the 8th and 9th, that not even 
a demonstration was made to assist the fleet. ' ' ' 

' War Records, series i., vol. xxxiv., part i., pp. 309, etc. 

' Ibid., p. 571 : 

"South Bank of Bayou Pietire, 

" Near Red River (Louisiana), April 19, 1864. 

" Leaving the division (cavalry) on the Grand Ecore road, in tem- 
porary command of Colonel , Gen. James P. Major and the writer 

rode down to Jordan's Ferry on this bayou, where General Green was 
crossing Parson's brigade of cavalry, to strike Red River at Blair's 
Landing, four miles distant, with a view of cutting off what gunboats 
and transports might still be above that point. The troops were still 
crossing (the horses having been left with the wagon train on the 
west bank of the bayou) when we sat down to his last dinner with 
that glorious old soldier Tom Green ; he had talked freely about the 
danger of this attack ; but felt the necessity of constant action, and 
knew that Gen. Dick Taylor was expecting great things of him, and 
it behoved him to strike the enemy at every point. He was more 
serious than usual, and his conversation was very earnest ; he longed 
for his old brigade (of Texans), and said he would have no doubt of 
the result if he was leading them to battle. 

"About three o'clock in the afternoon Parson's brigade and a sec- 
tion of West's battery opened fire on an ironclad and the (gunboat) 
Black Hawk. At first the fire from these boats was very severe ; but 



1 1 8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

On what General Taylor bases his statement about the 
white flag, does not appear. Evidently it was erroneous 
from the contemporaneous reports of those who participated 



■when our rifles got closer and poured shot into the portholes when- 
ever opened, the fire slackened, and we were evidently gaining 
ground, when an ironclad from below turned the point and gave us a 
broadside. We were but a short time exposed to this enfilading fire, 
when another grim monster came in sight, and threw a shower of 
grape or canister in the field through which we were still advancing. 

" The men were ordered to lie down, but even this could not save 
them ; there was (now) evidently more security to us in (greater) 
proximity, and General Green ordered a double-quick forward ; gal- 
loped to the front, riding a beautiful iron gray colt recently presented 
to him, and dismounted ; and when within a few feet of the river 
bank, near the Eastpori, was struck by pieces of grape shot or shell 
in the forehead and fell dead. The fire from the boats increased, and 
there was no longer hope for success. Green's death was soon known 
throughout the command, and began to tell upon the spirits of the 
men, and General Major assumed command and retired late in the 
afternoon with the dead and wounded. 

' ' There is gloom over the camp to-night which the memory of 
bright victories cannot dispel ; and his staff gather around their chief, 
as he lies stretched in death, with the light gone from his bright eye, 
the red finger of death upon his brow, and his ringing voice hushed 
forever. 

"An admirer and warm friend of General Major, General Green 
had invited General Major to accompany him on the field to-day ; and 
said to him, as if with prophetic vision he read the future : ' Here in 
the valley of Red River you will have the best chance to win pro- 
motion ' ; thinking, perhaps, ' if I fall, you can succeed me.' 

"They know little of the man who thought him a bold, blundering 
fighter, whose rashness was only equalled by his luck. He was cool, 
calm and calculating in deliberation, impetuous and irrisistible in 
action. Brave and active himself, he despised the timid and idle. 
Indifferent to appearances, he was simple in his dress ; but he carried 
a warm heart under his rough coat, and always had a hearty and 
honest welcome for his friends. Of fine talents, excellent education 
and pleasant address, he was always interesting, and would have made 
his mark in any profession. A good man, warm friend, and true sol- 
dier was Tom. Green. May his soul rest in peace." ' 

' Kxcerpt from diary of Alexander Porter Morse, Captain and Ass't Inspector 
General Major's Division of Green's (Texas) Cavalry Corps, army of Trans-Missis- 
sippi, C. S. A. 



Memoir 1 1 9 

on the Union side. It is not likely that any of Gen. Kilby 
Smith's soldiers would have surrendered in view of the 
punishment they were inflicting upon the enemy, and the 
insignificant loss to which they were subjected in return. 

From a private letter from Admiral Porter to General 
Sherman, dated April i6, 1864, some extracts will be of in- 
terest. In speaking of the fleet and its movements on the 
Red River, after the army had marched to its defeat at 
Sabine Cross Roads, he remarks : 

" I was much annoyed when I found that General Banks's 
quartermasters had added to the convoy ten large steamers 
which I had expressly stipulated with Gen. Kilby Smith 
were not to come up the river. We were detained six 
hours lightening one of them loaded with ammunition and 
the others were constantly getting into trouble. Gen. Kilby 
Smith was in no way responsible for this outrageous pro- 
ceeding, for it was done after we departed from Grand Ecore, 
and that ofl&cer left nothing undone to co-operate with me 
and carry the expedition through successfully. On all occa- 
sions I found General Smith ready and willing to co-operate 
in the same harmonious manner that has always existed be- 
tween the navy and the Army of the Tennessee. I am sure 
nothing will occur to interrupt that good feehng." ' 

Speaking at this time of the attack by General Green, he 
says : 

" It turned out to be what I had been expecting— an at- 
tack with artillery and infantry two thousand strong in our 
rear. Gen. Kilby Smith and two transports being divided 
from the main body by the artillery, which it was not proper 
to pass until silenced by the gunboats. This body of men 
was commanded by General Green, the best man they have, 
and one in whom the rebels place more confidence than in 
any one else. He led his men to the very edge of the bank, 
they shouting and yelling like madmen. They were hand- 

1 War Records, vol. xxxiv., series i., part iii., p. 173. 



1 20 Thomas Kilby Smith 

somely received by the Osage and Lexington in the old style, 
and General Smith in the Hastings, with part of his men, 
poured in his fire, and amongst us the rebels were cut into 
mincemeat. General Green and Colonel Chisum had their 
heads blown off with an ii-inch shell. The ground was 
covered with killed and wounded, and without great loss to 
ourselves. ... It was a most exciting and interesting 
week, much danger of being cut off unless aided by General 
Banks, which aid was not sent until I asked for it in person. 
. . . Finally, all came in safely, not losing a rope yarn. 
Your men behaved splendidly and coolly, and Gen. Kilby 
Smith like a brave and gallant officer. I shall always feel 
proud to be associated with him, and we will both likely re- 
member for many a day the perilous scenes we have gone 
through together." * 

Replying to Porter's letters, Sherman writes from Nash- 
ville, April 24th : 

" . . . Indeed I do think all our calculations were well 
made and the combined forces were ample to walk over all 
opposition. ... I think I could have made better time, 
but that is none of my business, although I do lose the ser- 
vices of ten thousand of m.y best men in the campaign over 
here. I am glad you are pleased with Generals Smith and 
Mower. Though I want both, I cannot call for them as long 
as their associates are in danger. ' ' " 

And from Chattanooga on the 3d of May : 

" I cannot comprehend why Banks after his second fight, 
when the fact is undoubted he had checked the enemy 
and had his front open, did not push on to meet you at 
Coushatta. It would then have had all the moral effect of a 
victory, and his losses, though heavy, would have been less 
felt. ... Of course I am gratified to know I was not 
mistaken in the character of the officers and men that I con- 
tributed to the expedition. I knew that A. J. Smith and 
Mower were good soldiers and that T. Kilby Smith was a 

^ War Records, vol. xxxiv., series i., part iii., p. 174, 
"^ Ibid., series i., vol. xxxiv., part iii., p. 275. 



Memoir 1 2 1 

courteous gentleman, with whom you would be pleased to 
associate." ' 

When the command of A. J. Smith had returned from the 
Red River expedition, it was ordered to Vicksburg, whither 
it at once proceeded, and on the 25th of May the following 
final report was made by Gen. T. Kilby Smith : 

" Hdqrs. Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, 

" Vicksburg, Miss., May 25, 1864. 
" Captain : 

' ' In obedience to orders, I have the honor to submit the 
following synopsis report of the part taken by my command 
in the Red River expedition : 

' ' First, my command consists as follows : First Brigade, 
Col. J. B. Moore commanding, composed of 33d Wisconsin 
Volunteers, Maj. H. H. Virgin commanding ; 3d Iowa Vol- 
unteers, Lieut. -Col. James Tullis commanding ; 41st Illinois 
Volunteers, I^ieut.-Col. J. H. Nale commanding. Second 
Brigade, Col. ly. M. Ward commanding, composed of 95th 
Illinois Volunteers, Ueut.-Col. T. W. Humphreys com- 
manding ; 8ist Illinois Volunteers, L,ieut.-Col. A. W. 
Rogers commanding ; 14th Wisconsin Volunteers, lyieut.- 
Col. J. W. Polleys commanding ; and Battery M, ist Mis- 
souri Light Artillery, Lieut. John H. Tiemeyer commanding, 
numbering in rank and file, 2237. 

" Second. In obedience to your orders of March 10, 1864, 
I embarked my command at Vicksburg on transports as- 
signed. March loth, 7 p.m., sailed from Vicksburg, arriving 
back at the same port May 24th, 3 a.m., having marched by 
land 239 miles. 

" Third. My command, in whole or part, has been in the 
following engagements and skirmishes, viz. : (i) Fort De 
Russy, March 14th ; (2) Pleasant Hill Landing, April 12th 
and 13th ; (3) Cloutierville, April 23d ; (4) near Cloutier- 
ville, April 24th ; (5) Moore's Plantation, May 4th ; (6) 
Boyce's Plantation, May 6th ; (7) Governor Wells's Planta- 
tion, May 6th ; (8) Bayou Boeuf, May 7th ; (9) Marksville, 
May i6th ; (10) Moreauville, May 17th ; (11 and 12) Yellow 
Bayou, May i8th. 

• Ibid., p. 411. 



12 2 Thomas Kilby Smith 

" Fourth. The casualties are as follows : 





KILLED. 


WOUNDED. 


MISSING. 




COMMAND. 


12 

I 

o 




t 

U 

o 




n 




First Brigade, Col. J. B. Moore 




5 
5 

2 




15 

22 
3 


I 


21 


Second Brigade, Col. L. M. Ward. . . 
Battery M, First Missouri Light Ar- 
tillery, Ivieut. J. H. Tienieyer . . . 


I 


28 

5 






Total 


I 


12 




40 


I 


54 









" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient 
servant, 

" Thos. Kilby Smith, 
" Brigadier-General, Commanding. 
" Capt. J. Hough, 

" Asst. Adjt-Gen., Detach. Sixteenth and Seventeeth 
" Army Corps." 

Gen. Kilby Smith's division was directed to proceed with- 
out delay to Memphis, to report to Maj.-Gen. C. C. Wash- 
burn, commanding the District of West Tennessee. General 
Canby, in a letter to General Halleck, under date of May 28, 
1864, writes : 

' ' I have sent the detachment of the Seventeenth Army 
Corps of Brig. -Gen. T. K. Smith to Memphis. If General 
Steele should not be threatened by any considerable force, 
the division of Maj.-Gen. A. J. Smith will also be sent to 
that place. The force in the District of West Tennessee will 
be increased as far as may be necessary to secure Sherman's 
rear, as his operations are far more important than any 
that can be undertaken immediately west of the Missis- 
sippi. . . ." ' 

This order severed the military relations that had existed 
during so eventful a period between Generals T. K. and A. 
J. Smith. Before leaving Vicksburg the former wrote the 
following letter : 

' War Records, series i., vol. xxxiv., part iv., pp. 43, 44, and 73. 



Memoir 123 

" Hdqts. Div. Seventeenth a. C, 

"ViCKSBURG, May 26, 1864. 

" My dear Generai, : 

" General Canby orders me to report my command to 
General Washburn at Memphis without delay, thus relieving 
you of the detachment from the Seventeenth Corps, Trans- 
ports have been assigned, and I have directed the fleet to 
sail at 12 o'clock to-night. 

" My very feeble health prevents me from bidding you 
adieu in person, yet I cannot leave without some expression 
of my feelings towards you, or without thanking you for the 
courteous and invariable kindness I have received from you 
while I had the honor to be in 3'our command. 

' ' Your valor and energy in the field under the pressure 
of unusual obstacles, have won for you a renown that will 
become historic. No soldier who has served with you but 
will speak of you with pride and glory in your leadership, 
and not this alone, you have shown the rare faculty of win- 
ning not only the respect and esteem but the dear love of 
your soldiery. Our regret is that to your guidance solely 
the expedition had not been entrusted, that while you were 
gathering laurels, substantial benefit might have accrued to 
our cause. 

" Thus much I had written when you interrupted me to 
bid me an affectionate good-by, to give me new proofs of your 
goodness of heart to me, and though what I have written is 
tame in expression, I must still send it as coming from my 
heart to yours. We know each other as soldiers and gentle- 
men linked in patriotism ' as with hooks of steel.' May 
God be with you, sir, always in your bright career, and for 
all my command, officers and soldiers, I bid you farewell. 

' ' Faithfully and most sincerely yours, 

' ' Thomas Kilby Smith, 
" Brig. -Gen. Comdg. 
" Gen. A. J. Smith." 

More than a year afterwards, when the war had closed, 
Gen. A. J. Smith testified his friendship in the following 
letter : 



124 Thomas Kilby Smith 

"M0BII.E, Ai,A., September i, 1S65. 
" General : 

" Brig. -Gen, Thomas Kilby Smith through your order to 
General McPherson, was assigned to my command in the 
Red River expedition. In that expedition he commanded a 
division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, and in my report I 
have mentioned his gallantry and ability as an officer. I 
am sorry to see he has not been brevetted, and respectfully 
ask of you to see this simple act of justice done. While in 
my command he performed faithfully all the duties assigned 
him by me, and is as worthy as any other officer of the honor 
I desire to see conferred. Very respectfully, General, 
" Your obedt. servant, 

"A. J. Smith, Major. -Gen. 
•• Maj.-Gen. W. T. Sherman, U. S. Army.'> 

This letter was endorsed by General Sherman : 

"Hdqtrs. Div. Miss., 

St. IvOuis, Sept, 28, 1865. 

' ' I take pleasure in endorsing this paper. Gen. T. Kilby 
Smith served near me all the years 1862, 3, and 4. On the 
Red River expedition he was detached, but Admiral Porter 
and Gen. A. J. Smith have officially and privately borne the 
highest testimony of the value of his services on that cam- 
paign. 

" W. T. Sherman, 
" Maj.-Gen. Comdg." 

Some historians of the war have given but scant attention 
to the Red River expedition, which is not surprising, first, 
because it failed, and, second, because the importance of the 
movement was overshadowed by the grander movements of 
General Grant, who had been placed in supreme command 
of the armies and was then conducting his Virginia cam- 
paigns, and of Sherman, whose successful movement on 
Atlanta was followed by his triumphant march to the sea. 
It was, however, the culminating point of Gen. Kilby 
Smith's military service. He had entered the army in the 
vigor of manhood, endowed by nature with an iron con- 



Memoir 125 

stitution, the strength of which had been steadily sapped by 
his almost too energetic devotion to duty during three years 
of nearly continuous field service. The failure of the plans, 
which, if they had been successful, would have enabled A. 
J. Smith's command to have rejoined Sherman's forces, 
debarred him from that time from acting under the eye of 
his favorite friend and chief, with whom he had been in close 
association for the most part from February, 1862, and lost 
him for that reason the opportunity to participate in the 
campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas. It had a serious 
effect, moreover, because the incessant exposure to a burning 
sun, and the anxiety of a difl&cult and delicate command gave 
the culminating blow to his physical strength. He was sun- 
struck on the march towards the Mississippi and fell sense- 
less from his horse. Recovering partially, however, he was 
enabled to complete the duty that had been assigned to him. 
We will pursue the narrative of his part in the operations by 
quoting from his testimony before the Committee on the Con- 
duct of the War. This body had been directed by resolution 
of Congress to investigate the Red River expedition. There 
were many disagreeable rumors and direct statements that the 
moving impulse of this expedition was more mercantile than 
military. The Red River country was well stocked with cot- 
ton, which at that time was of enormous value if it could be 
transported to market, and the statements were freely made 
that the military and naval movements were induced by the 
desire to bring this staple within the Union lines. The Com- 
mittee summoned before it various officers and civilians to 
testify, and among them General Smith, who gave his narra- 
tive on the 4th of February, 1865. The preliminary portion 
is omitted as the essential facts are included in the reports 
already quoted. From the i6th of April, however, until the 
close of the expedition, the story and the opinions of the 
General will appear from the following portion of his testi- 
mony : 

" Upon my arrival at Grand Ecore I found General Banks's 
army engaged in intrenching. On the 15th day of April, Fri- 
day, having remained a little time below Canipti getting a 
steamer off the bar, we moved down to Grand Ecore, reaching 



126 Thomas Kilby Smith 

there at lo o'clock p.m. (Finding General Banks in bed 
when we called upon him, we remained over night without 
seeing him.) 

" On the 1 6th of April, the Nineteenth Army Corps com- 
menced fortifying. We remained at Grand Ecore the 17th 
and 1 8th, everything remaining statu qzio. On the 19th we 
were ordered to have the men stand to arms at four o'clock 
on the following morning, and to have the army ready to 
march at short notice. 

" On the 20th of April the river was still falling. We 
received orders to be in readiness to march against the enemy 
at twelve o'clock meridian. We stood to arms on the road 
until half-past two o'clock p.m., when we moved out on the 
Natchitoches road. At the latter place our division had the 
advance. Up to this time our troops had been encouraged 
by the belief or direct promise that they were to march 
directly upon Shreveport. But now it had become evident 
that we were on the eve of making a grand retreat instead 
of marching against the enemy, as announced in the order; 
at least, it was not the way in which the Army of the Ten- 
nessee had been accustomed to march against the enemy. 

' ' Hearing it reported that our cavalry were being driven 
in by the enemy, two regiments of our division were sent out 
as a support ; but, not meeting the enemy, they returned at 
eight o'clock p.m. ; and, at ten o'clock p.m. we changed our 
front, moving the First Brigade and a battery so as to con- 
nect with General Mower's left, forming a crochet. The 
position was a very good one, from which the enemy would 
have found it impossible to move us had they had the 
temerity to attempt it. All was quiet during the night. At 
this time we were four miles in advance of General Banks's 
main army. As it subsequently appeared, it was placed in 
that position to enable him to commence a retrograde move- 
ment towards Alexandria while moving on the road mean- 
dering the Red River, while we amused the enemy at 
Natchitoches. 

" On the 2ist of April we remained still all day, the enemy 
being encamped some six miles distant with quite a large 
force of cavalry and a few pieces of artillery. We stood to 



Memoir 1 2 7 

arms until ten o'clock p.m., when we moved out some two 
miles by midnight, and here we were detained until seven 
o'clock A.M. the next day. 

" On the 22d of April we marched at seven o'clock a.m., 
and arriving at Cloutierville, on the Cane River, at three 
o'clock a.m. on the following day, having marched thirty- 
two miles from Natchitoches. We made the forced march 
of thirty-two miles without halting. 

" At three o'clock p.m. the skirmishing, which had been 
going on for some time in the rear, became quite brisk. 
Colonel L,ucas, commanding the cavalry brigade, sent for- 
ward for reinforcements. Two regiments of Colonel Ward's 
brigade and a section of artillery were sent back. They soon 
drove the enemy across the bayou, making them withdraw 
beyond the range of our guns. We lost but one man killed 
and none wounded. As soon as the enemy had retreated, 
we again took up our line of march towards Cane River. At 
half-past nine o'clock p.m., the men having had but little 
rest since the night of the 20th, we halted an hour to enable 
them to get some coffee ; at the end of which time we again 
took up our line of march, arriving, as before stated, at 
Cloutierville at three a.m. on the 23d. 

' ' On the 23d of April, we marched from Cloutierville at 
seven o'clock a.m. After marching an hour we were halted 
by the advance having some difficulty at a crossing of 
the Cane River, the crossing being contested by the enemy. 
Slight skirmishing continued in the rear between our rear- 
guard of cavalry and the enemy until ten o'clock a.m., when 
our cavalry commenced falling back to Cloutierville. 

' ' I ought to state here that on the first three days of this 
march my command had the extreme rear. General A. J. 
Smith's entire command being assigned to the duty of guard- 
ing General Banks's army. My own division was ordered 
back to Cloutierville to meet the enemy. I formed a line of 
battle, facing to the west, my left resting on Cane River and 
my right on a belt of timber in which we had deployed a 
strong skirmish line. General Mower, of the Sixteenth 
Army Corps, formed on my extreme right, but was not in 
the fight. The enemy first came up in double column in 



128 Thomas Kilby Smith 

our front. They were soon driven back, and immediately 
made a move to turn our right flank ; but there I met them 
with two six-gun batteries, masked, and three regiments, and 
gave them such a warm reception that they soon returned. 
Here the musketry fire was very brisk for a time. The 
skirmish line was instructed to fall back slowly, if pressed 
by the enemy, in the hope of drawing the enemy on to our 
reserves, which were advantageously posted. At twelve 
o'clock, noon, the enemy made his appearance in force on 
our left, attempting to get on our flank under cover of the 
bayou ; but this move had been anticipated, and two regi- 
ments, the 117th Illinois and the 3d Indiana, supported by 
the 49th Illinois, were so posted as to sweep all approaches. 
No sooner had the enemy made his appearance than four 
pieces of artillery opened upon him, sending his scattered 
ranks back. Thus, before one o'clock p.m., we had com- 
pletely defeated the enemy at every point. It is impossible to 
tell the enemy's loss. We took many prisoners, all of whom 
reported a heavy loss on their part in killed and wounded. 

" The enemy having fallen back, and our forces having 
moved up in front, we withdrew and marched four miles, 
where we formed a line of battle facing to the west, having 
the cavalry in double line in our front, the Sixteenth Army 
Corps having encamped in the rear of us, in supporting dis- 
tance. We lay there during that night. 

" On the 24th of April, Sunday, at three o'clock a.m., the 
enemy saluted us with some half a dozen shells, evidently 
for the purpose of feeling us, and hoping to draw a response 
from us, in order to learn our exact position. At five o'clock 
A.M. the cavalry pickets were driven in. In a short time 
the cavalry was ordered to fall back. Our division advanced 
in line some two hundred yards. The enemy came on with 
a 3^ell, which was cut short by a few well-aimed volleys of 
musketry and unceasing cannonading. The enemy fell back 
and we again advanced in line, driving them beyond the 
range of our artillery. Our loss was four killed and fourteen 
wounded. From deserters we learned that the enemy was 
severely punished in this engagement, in which their gen- 
eral. Parsons, was said to have been killed. 



Memoir 129 

" At nine o'clock a.m., in obedience to orders, the troop, 
were withdrawn, but in such a manner as to leave the enemy 
in doubt whether we were in ambush for them, or had taken 
up the line of march. We crossed Cane River at twelve 
o'clock noon, and arrived at Bayou Cotile at nine o'clock 
P.M., where we formed a double line of battle facing to the 
river, having the cavalry and batteries A and M, of the ist 
Missouri Light Artillery, massed in the front line. 

" On the 25th of April reveille was ordered at four o'clock, 
and we marched at ten o'clock. From this day, for the first 
time since leaving Natchitoches, our division had the ad- 
vance. At Henderson's Hill, there was a slight skirmish 
between our cavalry stationed there and a few of the enemy's 
scouts, but it did not amount to much. No sooner had 
we left Bayou Cotile than a squad of the enemy hove in 
sight. 

" On the 26th of April we marched toward Alexandria. 
Cannonading was heard in the rear all day. 

" On the 27th of April we arrived at Alexandria. The 
gunboats were above the falls, and the question was how to 
get them down. The Admiral arrived with his headquarters, 
the Cricket. She had thirty-six shots fired into her in pass- 
ing a rebel battery. I think there were forty-two killed and 
wounded. His fireman standing by his side was cut in two, 
and his chambermaid was literally quartered. The decks 
were a perfect slaughter pen. 

" On the 28th of April, at twelve o'clock noon, there was 
a report that the enemy was advancing. Then came a re- 
port that the pickets of the Thirteenth Army Corps had been 
driven in. At half-past two o'clock p.m. we were ordered 
out under arms, forming a line of battle facing the south ; 
our division being on the extreme left of the line ; our right 
resting on General Mower's command, our left resting on 
the river, having a battery between. We threw out a strong 
skirmish line half a mile in advance. The Thirteenth Army 
Corps was ordered to fall back twice, and refused to do so 
until ordered the third time, when it fell back, setting fire to 
a large quantity of forage, which was taken from the fire by 
Gen. A. J. Smith's command, he having thrown out a bri- 



130 Thomas Kilby Smith 

gade over a mile in advance of the Thirteentli Army Corps, 
where they remained until daylight the next morning. 

" I state these facts here because at this time there was a 
great deal of panic, or that which approached a panic, in 
that command. General McClernand was there in command 
of this Thirteenth Army Corps. They actually fired a lot of 
sutler's goods and forage, which were very scarce, and most 
all of which Gen. A. J. Smith took charge of, or as much as 
we could save from the fire, and we appropriated it. 

" On the 29th of April we received orders to withdraw the 
troops to camp, which was done at nine o'clock a.m. 

' ' On the 30th of April the river had fallen six feet since 
leaving Alexandria to ascend it ; but it was said to be rising 
at the time from back-water from the Mississippi. At mid- 
night we received orders to march at one o'clock a.m. ; but 
instructions were received from General Banks to be ready 
to march at sharp daylight. We did march at twelve o'clock 
noon, at which time the pontoon being finished across Lhe 
Red River, we marched over, and went into bivouac at the 
Louisiana State Seminary of I^earning and Military Acad- 
emy, the one of which General Sherman was superintendent 
at the time the rebellion broke out. At four o'clock p.m. the 
troops were formed in echelon, the position being a very 
strong one, with a strong picket line covering our entire 
front and flank. We remained quiet there during the day 
and night. 

' ' I will state now briefly, that from that time, which was 
the ist of May, until the 14th of May, we were continually 
engaged in skirmishing with the enemy, making divers 
reconnaissances to the front to ascertain the enemy's strength, 
and endeavoring to force him into a fight. 

" On the 14th of May we commenced marching towards 
Simmsport. On the 21st of May we re-embarked our com- 
mand at the mouth of the Red River, in the meantime 
having fought a battle every day. We were twenty-nine 
successive days under fire. 

" Question. Do 5^ou know what instructions Gen, A. J. 
Smith received when he was ordered to report to General 
Banks ? 



Memoir 1 3 1 

" Answer. His instructions were to report to General 
Sherman so soon as we got through, for we were only lent to 
General Banks ; we did not belong to his department ; we 
expected to rejoin General Sherman in his campaign towards 
Atlanta, or make a movement towards Mobile. We had ob- 
jects ulterior to the Red River expedition. 

" Question. Was there any time set within which you 
should return ? 

' ' Answer. The time specified was thirty days ; after the 
lapse of which. General Smith sought to be relieved, but 
General Banks did not permit him to leave. But the comity 
which existed between the navy and the army seemed to 
render it necessary that we should remain with the navy 
until they had at least gotten over the falls at Alexandria. 
We considered that our time was entirely lost after we had 
brought the troops back to Alexandria ; that General Banks 
could have taken care of the expedition himself. We never 
got to our command afterwards, but have been in detach- 
ments ever since. 

' ' Question. Do you know whether or not Gen. A. J. Smith, 
during the time he was with General Banks, considered him- 
self to be in all respects under the command of General 
Banks ? 

' ' Answer. His rank precluded his occupying any other 
position. I know Gen. A. J. Smith was adverse in opinion 
to that entertained by General Banks, because I heard him 
on more than one occasion express himself very freely, with- 
out approaching to mutiny or sedition. He, of course, ex- 
pressed himself freely to his brother officers. He felt as 
many of the rest of us felt, that our command was to a con- 
siderable extent being wasted. An anxiety on the part of 
General Banks's staff seemed to be felt to avoid a fight 
(whenever a fight was had. Gen. A. J. Smith was brisk for 
bringing it on) ; and yet there was no time when we did not 
feel ourselves entirely competent to handle the enemy. 

Question. " Was it, or not, the opinion of Gen. A. J. 
Smith that our army should have advanced after the battle 
of Pleasant Hill ? 

* ' Answer. It was, most decidedly ; to such an extent was 



132 Thomas Kilby S'}nith 

that opinion entertained by him that he proposed, and was 
anxious, to march to Shreveport with our command, feeling 
entirely competent to go to Shreveport and do all the devil- 
ment that was necessary and return. 

" Question. What do you understand to have been the 
object of that Red River expedition ? 

" Answer. It has been a mystery to me, save from what 
transpired en route. In my own mind I came to the conclu- 
sion that it was what would be called in military parlance a 
mercantile expedition ; that is, an expedition for the purpose 
of opening the country to trade ; or, perhaps, taking advan- 
tage of a victorious march to gather up what might naturally 
fall to the army of the government as spoils. 

" Question. What facts led you to that opinion ? 

" Answer. The presence of bagging and rope in large 
quantities on government transports, and the fact that upon 
one occasion when I was assigned to the transports, the 
quartermaster refused to give me certain room which we 
required for some troops, on the ground that the space had 
been assigned for cotton. 

" Question. Were those transports to which you refer 
army or navy transports ? 

" Answer. Army transports. There were no navy trans- 
ports. The navy gunboats are occasionally used to transport 
troops, but they are not well calculated for the convenience 
of troops. They are very rarely so used except to meet exi- 
gencies of the service. 

" Question. Do you know anything in relation to cotton 
operations in connection with that expedition ? 

' ' Answer, I do not. I have been specially careful in my 
service in the southwest, since the war began, to avoid inter- 
course with anybody who would be apt to give me informa- 
tion in respect to transactions of any sort, kind or description, 
relative to cotton. General Smith gave orders that no cotton 
should be placed upon his boats for any purpose whatever ; 
and if my memory serves me right — I have no written 
memoranda in regard to it — he refused most positively to 
obey an order in that behalf, with the remark that while he 
controlled transports they should not be used for the trans- 
portation of cotton. 



Memoir 133 

" Question. To what order do you refer ? 

' ' Answer. I refer to an order made by General Banks to 
General Smith while the transports lay at Alexandria, after 
our return to that place. 

' ' Question. Can you give the terms of the order ? 

' ' Answer. I cannot, for I do not have it with me. I only 
have it from recollection. 

" Question. Was this cotton that you speak of cotton that 
had been brought into Alexandria ? 

' ' Answer. There had been a great deal of cotton brought 
into Alexandria. The navy had seized vast quantities of it 
which had been laden on barges and been sent down the river. 
There were also two or three large boats laden with cotton, 
as I supposed, under government protection to some extent. 
There was a great deal of cotton left at Alexandria when the 
transports finally sailed. That was destroyed, as I under- 
stood, by order of General Banks. I do not know that any 
cotton was brought out from the Red River by order of Gen- 
eral Banks. 

" Question. Was there any cotton taken on board any 
vessel by order of any one connected with the navy ? 

" Answer. Yes, sir ; Admiral Porter ordered the seizure 
of a vast deal of cotton ; I should think many thousand 
bales. 

Question. Was the cotton you have spoken of as being 
on board during one of the fights on the Red River put on 
board by order of ofiicers commanding the army, or ofl&cers 
connected with the navy ? 

' ' Answer. I did not intend to convey the idea that cotton 
was on board the transports, but that a space for it was re- 
served on the quartermaster's boat, a space which he refused 
to assign to me upon the ground that it had already been 
reserved to load cotton upon. 

" Question. I do not refer to that, but to one of the fights 
above Grand Kcore, where you said your soldiers sheltered 
themselves behind cotton bales, bales of hay, etc. 

Answer. That cotton was a few scattered bales that lay 
on the shore, and which we stopped and took on board solely 
for protection to the troops. It was afterwards thrown over- 
board. 



134 Thomas Kilby Smith 

" Question. To what quartermaster do you refer as claim- 
ing that the space was reserved for cotton ? 

' ' Answer. I do not remember his name, but he was acting 
under the orders of the quartermaster of the Department of 
the Gulf, Colonel Holabird. 

" Question. Do you recollect the name of the boat ? 

' ' Answer. I do not recollect the name of the boat, but she 
was a quartermaster's boat ; I mean by that, a transport 
assigned exclusively for quartermaster's stores. 

' ' Question. At what point was it that this occurred ? 

" Answer. At Grand Ecore, at the time I was ordered to 
take charge of the transports and proceed up the river to 
I,oggy Bayou. 

' ' Question. Do you know why the army was detained at 
Alexandria on the way up the river ? 

' ' Answer. Because General Banks was not there in per- 
son. The navy was very anxious to move up the river, and 
the army was equally anxious. 

" Question. How soon did the army move after General 
Banks arrived ? 

" Answer. Some four or five days. Our own command 
was put in motion within two days after his arrival. 

"Question. Were the other portions of the army ready 
to move before or at the time of the arrival of General 
Banks ? 

" Answer. No, sir ; I think that General Franklin's com- 
mand arrived about the time that General Banks's arrived. 
I do not think that all the army was ready before his arrival. 
We were ordered to report on the 17th of March ; and re- 
porting with great promptitude were somewhat surprised 
that a movement was not at once made from Alexandria. 
Celerity of movement was important at that time, inasmuch 
as the river was falling. 

' ' Question. Did or not the army move from that point as 
soon as it could be got in readiness to move ? 

' ' Answer. I think not ; because our own command could 
have been sent forward as advance guard at any time after 
the 17th. 

" Question. What would have been the advantage of 



Memoir 135 

sending your command forward if the remainder of the army- 
had not been ready to follow ? 

* ' Answer. We had been pressing the enemy vigorously 
from Simmsport. We had defeated him in every small en- 
gagement into which we could lead him. His troops were 
to a certain extent demoralized. General Magruder and 
Gen. Kirby Smith had not at that time been able to concen- 
trate their forces. Every day's delay enabled Kirby Smith 
to concentrate his forces and make a stand at some point be- 
tween Alexandria and Shreveport, as was evidenced after- 
wards at Sabine Crossroads and at Pleasant Hill. 

" Question. Is it your opinion that it would have been 
advisable for a portion of the army to have moved forward 
without regard to the readiness of the other portions of the 
arm}^ to follow ? 

' ' Answer. I am of the opinion that at any time prior to 
the battle of Sabine Crossroads, our own command of ten 
thousand men, with the aid of the navy, could have gone to 
Shreveport. 

" Question. Do you know with what force the enemy met 
our advance at Sabine Crossroads ? 

" Answer. I have no means of knowing, except the ordi- 
nary rumors in military circles. I suppose there were about 
twenty-five thousand men. 

' ' Question. Do you know whether or not it was the opin- 
ion of the principal officers connected with that command 
that one cause of the disaster was that our infantry was not 
concentrated at the time of the battle of Sabine Crossroads ? 

" Answer. That was undoubtedly the opinion ; that, in 
short, the battle was brought on too soon. The cavalry 
were taken imawares, without sufficient support of the 
infantry. 

" Question. Is it your opinion that the infantry should 
have been nearer the cavalry at that time, and where they 
could have rendered them immediate support ? 

' ' Answer. It is. 

" Question. So far as you know, is that the opinion of the 
principal officers connected with that expedition ? 

" Answer. It is. 



136 Thomas Kilby Sinith 

' ' Question. Then you would not be of the opinion that 
the cavalry should have been still further in advance of the 
infantry than they were at that time. 

' ' Answer. I would not, unless as scouts. I do not think 
that that body of six thousand cavalry (as reported, though 
I believe in fact there were only three thousand five hun- 
dred), under the command of General I^ee — not reflecting at 
all upon him as an officer, for I think he is as good an officer 
as we have in the service — I do not think they ought to have 
been forced into a fight without any infantry. That cavalry 
was fatigued by a long march ; it was not well mounted, and 
it was not veteran cavalry. And under no circumstances 
would I put cavalry in the vanguard of an army when I ex- 
pected to fight, except as mere feelers, especially in a country 
like that, which was a champagne country. 

" Question. Was the topography of that country, and the 
roads, of such a character that cavalry were not as efficient 
as they usually are in movements through an enemy's 
country ? 

' ' Answer. My opinion is that the same number of infantry- 
would have been much more efficient than cavalry in that 
country, so far as I know the topography of that country. 

" Question. Then you think the cavalry should have been 
relied upon merely for the purpose of observation, and not 
relied upon to do any considerable portion of the fighting ? 

" Answer. That is my opinion exactly. But my opinion 
should be taken in connection with the fact that I was not 
there on the battlefield. I did not see the ground ; I make 
up my opinion from what others have said in my presence, 
from my general knowledge of the country, my general 
knowledge of the command, and my experience on other 
battlefields. After all, it is a mere matter of opinion. 

' ' Question. Have you any knowledge in relation to getting 
the navy over the falls at Alexandria as you came down the 
river ? 

' ' Answer. Yes, sir. The river was falling rapidly ; the 
Eastport, one or two valuable transports, and in particular 
the Woodford, one of the most valuable boats of the marine 
brigade, which had been fitted up by the government at an 



Memoir 137 

enormous expense as a hospital boat, were all lying aground 
above the falls. One or two projects were under discussion ; 
one was to blow out the bed of the Red River ; another was 
to construct a dam, which was considered feasible, and was 
the generally conceived and well adopted idea of the whole 
army. I never heard any discussion about it. It was finally 
determined to build cribs and wing-dams, in such a way as 
to increase the depth of the channel, by forcing all the water 
into a narrow channel. 

" Question. By whom was that done ? 

' ' Answer. It was done under the supervision of Colonel 
Bailey, of Wisconsin. 

' ' Question. Was it done by co-operation of the army and 
navy ? 

" Answer. By the army almost exclusively, inasmuch as 
the army had better facilities for doing the work than the 
navy. However, I ought not to say that, either, for the 
navy furnished coal barges, etc. I may say it was done by 
co-operation of the army and navy. 

" Question. Was there any want of co-operation between 
the army and navy ? 

' ' Answer. By no means ; they were exactly en rapport. 
Admiral Porter was always satisfied with the celerity and 
energy with which the work was prosecuted. And I know, 
of my own knowledge, that all the men that cotdd work 
were at work all the time. 

" I have been asked as to whether, at any time, during 
the expedition, our forces, or any portion of them, could have 
made the advance so far as Shreveport, which seemed to be 
the objective point, and, in the course of my narrative, have 
given an opinion which I desire to explain. I have always 
thought the troops under my command, trained in the old 
* Army of the Tennessee,' under General Sherman, who had 
led them constantly onward, and never to retreat, were very 
far superior in marching and fighting qualities to any troops 
the enemy could bring into the field in the west ; and the 
same remark could be made of that portion of the Sixteenth 
Army Corps who co-operated with us. Hence I believe, by 
rapid and forced marches from Alexandria, on the i8th and 



138 Thomas Kilby Smith 

19th of March, Gen. A. J. Smith could have reached Shreve- 
port with his own command, even had we been opposed hy 
twenty thousand of the enemy — double our own number. 
But the enemy's forces, at that time, were in number and 
distributed thus : Magruder had about twenty thousand — 
fifteen thousand serviceable — his main body covering Galves- 
ton and Houston ; Dick Taylor's division, seven thousand, 
upon the Atchafalaya and Red rivers, from Opelousas to 
Fort De Russy originally, but whom we had driven and had 
now before us ; Mouton's division, behind the Black and 
Washita rivers, from Red River to Monroe, numbering six 
thousand. Price, with five thousand infantry and ten thou- 
sand cavalry, held the country from Monroe to Camden and 
Arkadelphia, confronting Steele — an army say of from 
twenty-five thousand to thirty-five thousand. The defences 
of the enemy consisted of a series of works covering the ap- 
proaches to Galveston and Houston from the south, the de- 
fences of Galveston Bay, Sabine Pass, and Sabine River ; ex- 
tensive works at Trinity and Fort De Russy, and an entensive 
and formidable work located three miles from Marksville for 
the defence of the Red River, a work that had occupied the 
enemy, with the labor of five thousand negroes, upwards of 
a year to construct, and that was called the Gibraltar of the 
South. This work we had carried. Steele was at least 
entertaining Price ; Magruder, then, did not dare to leave 
the Texas line. The enemy would not have abandoned 
their works at Trinity, and thus the residue of their army 
would not have greatly outnumbered our own, and the best 
part of that residue we had on the run. We could have 
lived off the country ; we were used to it, and our soldiers 
could forage and keep up with a forced march. But the 
lighter boats of the fleet, at the then stage of the water in 
the Red River, could certainly have ascended to Shreveport, 
as was proved afterwards by the boats overcoming the most 
serious obstacles that intervened before reaching Loggy 
Bayou, between which point and Alexandria is the most 
difficult part of the river below the raft. Still, my opinion 
must be taken with the qualification that, as a subordinate 
officer, I could not know the plans of the commanding gen- 



Memoir 139 

eral, or the orders that governed the campaign, or whether 
Shreveport was really the objective point. Nor am I able 
to say what co-operation was expected from General Steele 
(whose point of departure was I^ittle Rock, Arkansas, to 
operate in our theatre), or whether he was acting in- 
dependently or at command of General Banks. These 
considerations, taken together with the knowledge the com- 
manding general is supposed to have of the numbers and 
movements of the enemy, his own strength, and the objects 
to be accomplished, would neutralize the mere opinion of 
any subordinate general who was not the confidant of the 
general-in-chief. The enemy, at any time, after the first 
week in April, was able to concentrate from twenty-two 
thousand to twenty-seven thousand in our front (did bring 
into the field at the battle of Sabine Crossroads at least 
twenty-two thousand of all arms ; by some reports, twenty- 
five thousand). This would have been the concentration of 
the commands of Magruder, Dick Taylor, Mouton, and 
whatever Price, who was still confronting Steele, might 
have been able to spare. At this time our own army was 
being depleted from various causes. A depot of supplies 
had been made at Alexandria, necessitated by the condition 
of the river, and the inability of some of the steamers to pass 
the falls. A garrison to defend it was the consequence. 
Sickness arising from bad water and the heat of the climate, 
the smallpox, that had been engendered by the sick on the 
filthy and horribly policed marine brigade boats that had 
been assigned me for transports, and which being ordered 
back from Alexandria, deprived us of the slight co-operation 
they might have afforded. And so far as we should march, 
until we crossed to Texas, the Red River must have been 
our base, while a more treacherous river, for the purposes 
of navigation, does not exist. The rapidity of movement to 
Shreveport and instant return could alone have saved the 
fleet from stranding in the heart of the enemy's country. 
These facts, it is proper for me to state, in connection with 
any opinion as to what movements might have been made, or 
the results that might have ensued, that I may be called 
upon to express. 



I40 Thomas Kilby Stnitk 

" I desire to take this occasion, which will probably be 
the only public one accorded me, to speak of the valor and 
fortitude displayed by the officers and soldiers of my com- 
mand, in its connection with the Red River expedition, that 
demanded constantly the exercise of the highest qualities of 
the soldier. In every engagement with the enemy in which 
my command participated — Pleasant Hill I^anding, Campti, 
Natchitoches, Cloutierville, Cane River, Monsouri, Yellow 
Bayou, and several smaller combats near Grand Ecore and 
Alexandria — we were successful. My staff-officers, Captain 
William Warner, Captain Scott, Captain Wetmore, Major 
Carle ; my brigadiers, Col. J. B. Moore, Col. L,. M. Ward ; 
and Lieutenant Tiemeyer, Batter}^ M, ist Missouri lyight 
Artillery, deserve the highest commendation the country 
can bestow. In the very remarkable passage of the fleet 
from Loggy Bayou to Grand Ecore, vast amounts of govern- 
ment property and stores, with munitions and ammunition, 
were saved from destruction, or falling into the hands of the 
enemy, by the persistent and enduring efforts of these heroic 
men, under circumstances appalling to all but the truly 
brave. The merit of the subordinate is often veiled in the 
glory of his chief ; none, among all who did their whole duty, 
in obedience to orders in this affair, deserve more than the 
gallant officers I have mentioned, and the officers and sol- 
diers they commanded. Having paid this compliment to 
my soldiers, I close my evidence in bearing testimony in 
favor of the pilots of boats, who, in the affairs alluded to as 
well as many others that have transpired in the western 
waters, have developed high courage, coolness, and faithful- 
ness to trust. The pilot at the wheel is the first man singled 
out by the sharpshooter of the enemy ; his wheel-house is 
the easiest mark for the battery ; if he falters one moment in 
his exposed and delicate trust, his boat is grounded upon a 
shoal, or bears broadside ashore, at the mercy of a relentless 
foe. He wins no fame ; his name never appears in reports. 
I have never known an instance of his exhibiting cowardice 
or treachery. 

' ' I present the following table of distances from Shreveport 
to New Orleans : 



Memoir 141 

Shreveport to Waterloo 45 miles. 

to Reuben White's 15 " 60 

to E. C. Aiken's 5 " 65 

to Caspiana 5 " 7° 

to Madama Bessiers 10 " 80 

to mouth of Loggy bayou.. .30 " no 

to Grand Bayou 15 " 125 

to Willow Point 8 " I33 

to Coushatta Chute 7 " ^40 

to Grappe's Bluflf 40 " 180 

to Campti 20 " 200 

to Grand Ecore 20 " 220 

to Tiger Island 5 " 225 

to H. Tessier's 3 " 228 

to George Gurnege's 2 " 230 

toP.Rachel's 6 " 236 

to St. Maurice 5 " 241 

to O. K. Landing 13 " 254 

to A. Favius's 3 " 257 

to Montgomery 7 " 264 

to Durand's 5 " 269 

to Buckstone Landing 6 " 275 

to mouth Cane River 25 " 300 

toCotile 20 " 320 

to Alexandria 20 " 340 

to Pierce's.. 35 " 375 

to Norman's 32 " 407 

to Barbin's Landing 3 " 410 

to mouth Black River 40 " 45° 

to Red Rivar wharf-boat 40 " 490 

to Bayou Sara 45 " 535 

to Baton Rouge 35 " 57° 

to Placquemine 20 " 590 

to Donaldsonville 30 " 620 

to New Orleans 80 " 700 

" I feel desirous that nothing I have said shall be construed 
as in any manner reflecting upon the intentions and integrity 
of General Banks, for whom I have the highest respect. 
There has been a great deal of criticism in military circles in 
regard to the Red River expedition ; but there was nothing 
ordered or done by General Banks, within my knowledge, 
that was not exactly within the purview of his instructions. 
Nor do I desire to reflect upon any officer ; I merely desire to 
state the facts." 



142 Thomas Kilby Smith 

The command of Gen. T. Kilby Smith, having reported at 
Vicksburg, proceeded thence to Memphis, where it arrived 
on the 30th day of May. The eflfective force at that time 
were eighteen hundred men, but so exhausted were they 
from the arduous campaign from which they had just re- 
turned, that, according to the report of Gen. C. C. Wash- 
burn, to whom they reported, only about eight hundred of 
them were in condition to take the field. ' Their commanding 
general was so low from the results of his field services, that 
he was carried almost in a dying condition to the Gayoso 
House at Memphis, where he lay ill until the 3d of June, 
when, having obtained a sick leave, the first furlough of any 
description since he had entered the service in October, 1861, 
he proceeded to his home. His division passed temporarily 
under the command of Col. J. B. Moore, of the 14th Wiscon- 
sin Infantry, a soldier well tried and entirely competent to 
maintain the credit of himself and his troops. A portion of 
the command was assigned to the expedition of Gen. S. D. 
Sturgis, which pursuant to orders of Major- General McPher- 
son moved out from Memphis to attack the forces of the 
Confederate General Forrest, who was then at Tupelo, and 
also to destroy the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Sturgis 
was unsuccessful in this expedition, and with his command 
of three thousand three hundred cavalry, five thousand in- 
fantry, and sixteen pieces of artillery, he was routed by 
Forrest in a severe battle near Gunntown, Mississippi, and 
returned discomfited to Memphis. After this failure, the 
division remained under the command of General Washburn 
for some time, and finally returned to the command of Gen. 
A. J. Smith and did gallant service under Thomas in the 
campaign that resulted in the annihilation of the army of 
Gen. J. B. Hood at Franklin and Nashville. 

From the 9th of June, 1864, until October of the same year, 
General Smith sought in the quietude of home to recover his 
shattered health. While his former comrades were fighting 
with Sherman at Atlanta, or with Thomas in Tennessee, he 
was compelled to a life of inaction. His family had taken a 
house at Yellow Springs, a pleasant village in Greene County, 
' War Records, series i., vol. xxxix., part i., p. 85. 



Memoir 1 43 

Ohio, which formed a haven of rest for the families of a num- 
ber of oflScers of distinction, those of Generals Schofield, 
Stanley, Rosecrans, Scammon and others being there. In the 
pure air and surroundings of that pretty place he recovered 
after months of inaction some measure of strength, and in 
the autumn proceeded to the East, where he visited relatives 
in Massachusetts and also made a visit to the headquarters 
of the army in Washingtion, and at City Point. It was not 
until the 4th of January, 1865, that he rejoined his command 
at Clifton, Tennessee, when he was at once assigned to duty, 
superseding Colonel Moore in the command of his old divi- 
sion detachment of the Army of the Tennessee. ' The whole 
detachment of three divisions commanded respectively by 
General McArthur, Gen. K. Garrard, and Gen. T. Kilby 
Smith was under the command of General A. J. Smith. 

The loth of January, found the command at Eastport, 
Mississippi, and on the 17th, General Smith was assigned to 
command an expedition of reconnaissance.' 

' "Special Orders \ 
"No. 3. i" 

" Hdqrs. Detach. Army of the Tenn., 

" Clifton, Tenn., Jan. 4, 1865. 

" Brig. -Gen. Thomas Kilbj' Smith, having reported at these head- 
quarters for duty is hereby assigned to and will at once assume com- 
mand of the Third Division Detachment Army of the Tennessee. Col. 
J. B. Moore, now commanding the Third Division is hereby relieved 
from such command and will report to Brig. -Gen. T. K. Smith for 
assignment. In relieving Colonel Moore, the Major-General com- 
manding desires to express his high appreciation of the able, thorough 
and soldierly manner with which he has executed the trust confided 
to him in this command. By order of Maj.-Gen. A. J. Smith. 

"J. Hough, Maj. and Asst. Adjt.-Gen." * 
5 " Hdqrs. Detach. Army of the Tenn., 

" Eastport, Miss., Jan. 17, 1865. 
"Brig.-Gen. T. K. Smith, 

" Comdg. Third Division. 
"General : 

"The Major-General commanding directs that you have your com- 
mand in readiness to move at an early hour to-morrow morning on a 
reconnaissance. Leaving your camps with your sick and light-duty 
* War Records^ series i., vol. xlv., pt. ii., p. 509. 



144 Thomas Kilby Smith 

It was fated, however, that this expedition should pass 
under the command of another, for on the same day orders 
were received from Washington directing General Smith to 
report to the Adjutant-General at that city, in order to ap- 
pear as a witness before the Committee on the Conduct of 
the War on the subject of the Red River expedition. A 
portion of his testimony has been hitherto quoted. ' 

General Smith remained in Washington or thereabouts un- 
til February i8, 1865, when in obedience to orders he started 
on the return to his command.^ On his way to the South 

men, you will take six days' rations, three in haversacks and three in 
wagons. You will also take your ambulance train and one wagon to 
each regiment for cooking utensils. One battery will be suflScient. 
The cartridge-boxes of the men should be full, and about thirty thou- 
sand rounds of ammunition taken as a reserve supply. Cavalry will 
accompany you and full instructions given before the time of start- 
ing. You will command the expedition. 

"I am very respectfully your obedient servant, 

"J. Hough, 
" Major and Assistant Adjutant- General." 

* " Special Orders 1 

"No. 14. i" 

" Hdqrs. Detach. Army of the Tenn., 

" EastporT, Miss., Jan. 17, 1865. 

" 2. Brig. -Gen. Thomas Kilby Smith, U. S. Volunteers, is hereby 
relieved from the command of the Third Division Detachment Army 
of the Tennessee in order to comply with telegrams from the Secretary 
of War to report in person without delay to the Adjutant-General of 
the Army at Washington, D. C. The Quartermaster's department 
will furnish transportation. 

"3. Col. J. B. Moore, 33d Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers, senior 
officer, is hereby temporarily assigned to and will at once assume 
command of the Third Division Detachment Army of the Tennessee. 
. . . By command of Maj. -Gen. A. J. Smith. 

"J. Hough, 
" Major and Assistant Adjutant-General." * 

* On his return over the Pennsylvania Railroad, an accident oc- 
curred some miles west of Cresson, by reason of the spreading of the 
rails while the train was going at a rapid rate of speed and several of 
the cars, including that in which he was a passenger, were precipi- 
tated down an embankment of the Conemaugh River, a distance of 

* War Records, part ii., vol. xlv., p. 605. 



Memoir 145 

he paid another brief visit to his family, and his orders re- 
quiring him to report in New Orleans, it seemed a pleasant 
and convenient opportunity to indulge his wife with an ex- 
cursion to that point. Accordingly, in the month of March, 
accompanied by her and his eldest son, he journeyed to St. 
Louis, and there embarked on a Mississippi steamboat and 
sailed to New Orleans. The journey was an uneventful one 
but immediately on reaching his destination orders came to 
proceed at once to the army before Mobile. Mrs. Smith had 
no alternative but to return with her son after but twenty- 
four hours in New Orleans, while her husband obeyed his 
orders. Reporting to General Canby, he was assigned to 
the command of the military district of South Alabama and 
Florida, with headquarters at Fort Gaines. During the 
month of April the Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeley were 
captured and shortly afterwards Mobile surrendered. On 
the 28th of May, General Smith was assigned to the com- 
mand of the district and post of Mobile, and made his head- 
quarters in that city. The duties of a military commander 
in the field had become familiar to him, but those of a civil 
administrator, save for his experience at Natchez, were 
novel. The city was, of course, under martial law and the 

over forty feet. A newspaper account of the accident says : "Among 
those most conspicuous in administering to the wants of the wounded 
were Gen. T. K. Smith and Dr. Hope. Several persons were killed, 
and a great many wounded." General Smith says : 

"It was only a little after five o'clock in the evening. It is not 
known how often the cars were turned over in their fearful plunge. 
They were broken to pieces, and one of them, the middle one, which 
is believed to have been turned over twice, had its roof torn off and 
between the roof and one of the sides, the men. . . . Several 
ladies in this car were badly injured. So steep was the embankment 
down which the cars had plunged, that ropes had to be employed and 
the car seats used as sledges to drag to the top the wounded and dead. 
As soon as the cars had landed, they took fire from the stoves, and but 
for the prompt exertions of the passengers would have been burned 
up and the loss of life much greater. Snow and what water could be 
got from the run, where the ice was broken, and carried in the hats 
of the passengers, were the agents employed to check the flames. 
Twenty-three persons were seriously injured, in addition to the two 
who were killed. . . ," 



146 Thomas Kilby Smith 

duties of civil administration as well as of military had to be 
administered by the general in command. Many diflScult 
and vexatious questions were constantly before him for de- 
cision. The most important, and the one that involved per- 
haps the greatest force of character to determine, arose from 
a request of the newly enfranchised negroes to celebrate the 
4th of July by a merry making and processions. It was 
much feared by some of the citizens that to permit this 
would lead to violence and bloodshed, and General Smith 
was implored not to permit it. 

He felt his duty to be otherwise, however, and the results 
indicated the wisdom of his conduct, for the affair termi- 
nated most successfully and without producing any ill- 
feeling. 

General Smith's military career had now practically ter- 
minated. He had heard for the last time the sound of a 
hostile gun. It had been his fortune to fight his way 
along the whole course of the " Father of Waters" and 
many of its tributary streams from the State of Kentucky 
until it poured its waters in the gulf. He had attained 
the highest rank but one grade that could be reached in 
the volunteer service. The best years of his life had been 
given freely to the service of the Government. From every 
commanding officer he had received encomium and no 
word of censure appears in the records upon his military 
or civil conduct. His misfortune had been to be sepa- 
rated from Sherman by the Red River expedition. No 
doubt this duty had been assigned to him as a special com- 
pliment and evidence of confidence on the part of Generals 
McPherson and Sherman ; but the hardships had exhausted 
his physical strength already seriously undermined. He 
had been unable to return to the front in time to take part 
in the field service at Nashville, and he was forever separated 
from the bulk of the army of the Tennessee that had swept 
through Georgia and the Carolinas, until it had forced the 
surrender of General Joe Johnson, and finally participated in 
the grand review at Washington. The spring of 1865 wit- 
nessed the final collapse of the great rebellion. The sur- 
render of L,ee at Appomattox preceded but a short time that 



Memoir 147 

of Johnson, and during the summer the last organized forces 
of the Confederates under General E. Kirby Smith in Texas, 
lowered the flag they had so gallantly defended during four 
years of most terrific warfare. On the 22d of August, 1865, 
General Smith was relieved from the command of the post 
and district of Mobile. General Canby on a subsequent 
occasion bore the following testimony to his services in that 
theatre of war: 

" HDQa^RS. Department of Washington, 

" Washington, D. C, March 7, 1867. 

" Brevt. Major-Gen. T. Kilby Smith reported to me for 
duty just prior to the commencement of the Mobile campaign 
in the spring of 1865, and was assigned to one of the most 
important commands of that campaign, that of the district 
of South Alabama, including the large depots at the mouth 
of Mobile Bay. The duties of this command involved ex- 
ecutive and administrative abilities of a high order. These 
duties were intelligently and efficiently performed and were 
of the greatest importance to the success of the campaign. 
After the fall of Mobile, General Smith was transferred to 
that city, and in addition to his military duties was charged 
with the supervision of the civil administration of that city 
and district. These quasi-civil duties were performed with 
discretion and judgment, and the peace and quiet of the city 
was preserved through two or three periods of excitement 
that threatened to result in disorder. General Smith's 
official and personal conduct during the period of his con- 
nection with my command was fully approved. 

" Ed. R. S. Canby, 
" Brig. -Gen. and Bvt. Maj.-Gen. U. S. Army." 

On the 13th of March, 1865, as has been hitherto men- 
tioned. General Smith received the brevet of Major- General 
of Volunteers for gallant and meritorious services during the 
war, and with this rank, after a leave of absence until January 
15, 1866, he was honorably mustered out of the service of 
the United States. It had been his ambition to continue in 
the military profession. His habit of mind fitted him pecul- 
iarly for the duties of a soldier and he had won the right to 



148 Thomas Kilby Smith 

wear the livery of the Government during the remainder of 
his Hfe. This, however, was not to be. In the autumn of 
1865 he had moved his family from Ohio to Torresdale, one 
of the most beautiful of the suburbs of Philadelphia, in order 
to place his daughters at the convent of the Sacred Heart to 
be educated, and his sons at school in the city. Although 
in feeble health, his spirits were still high ; and he felt certain 
that his services during the war had entitled him to con- 
sideration at the hands of the Government. Meantime he 
sought relaxation, and in company with General Sherman 
he made an extensive tour through New England and 
Canada. Wherever the party stopped it was received with 
unbounded enthusiasm. While in New England they visited 
the historic Dartmouth College at Hanover, New Hampshire, 
and that institution conferred honorary degrees on several 
of the soldiers, who with Sherman had illustrated the service. 
That of Master of Arts was conferred upon General Smith, 
a distinction that he very highly appreciated. Although 
not a college graduate, he was a fine scholar in the English 
classics, with some knowledge of French and of Latin. Re- 
proach has been cast upon some collegiate institutions for the 
freedom with which they are wont to lavish the degrees they 
are entitled to confer ; but in this case the honor fell upon 
one who could bear with dignity and pride the title of Master 
of the liberal arts. On the recommendation of General 
Sherman he filed his application for a commission in the 
regular army, and it was thought by his friends that the 
rank of colonel might have been bestowed upon him with 
entire propriety. His application, however, did not meet 
with favor, and it became necessary for him to turn his eyes 
in another direction. The delegation from the State of Ohio 
in Congress without exception recommended his name to 
the President for appointment in the civil service and finally 
he was persuaded against his better judgment to take the 
post of Consul of the United States at Panama. He had 
been confirmed for this appointment by the Senate, when 
his name was sent in to that body for the consulship at 
Havana, but owing to some misunderstanding and probably 
to the personal wish of Secretary Seward, who looked upon 



Memoir 149 

the consulship at Panama as being one of the most important, 
in view of the projected canal across the Isthmus, it was 
settled that he should keep that post. During the remainder 
of the administration of President Johnson, whose policy 
towards the reconstruction of the Southern States General 
Smith heartily supported, he held this position, but was 
compelled by the severe trials of the climate acting upon his 
constitution, already so much shattered, to absent himself 
frequently from his post. While in this position he made a 
trip to California. A number of questions of importance to 
the interests of the United States arose during his adminis- 
tration of the consulship, which were handled by him with 
good judgment and to the satisfaction of the government. 
In politics General Smith was an ardent Democrat, and as 
such he was a strenuous advocate of the nomination of Gen- 
eral Hancock for the presidency during the campaign of 1868. 
With many of his old comrades he organized a convention 
of soldiers and sailors in the city of New York during the 
meeting of the National Democratic Convention, and sought 
by every honorable means to influence that body to nominate 
Hancock, but as will be remembered, the movement was a 
failure, and Horatio Se3^mour was selected to make a hope- 
less contest against General Grant. General Smith's per- 
sonal relations with General Grant had been most intimate 
during his western campaigns with that soldier, and nothing 
had occurred to occasion any personal differences between 
them. But on General Grant's accession to ofiice, the policy 
of his administration caused him to make many changes in 
the personnel of the diplomatic and consular ofl&cers, and 
among the first to be recalled from his post was General 
Smith. 

A short time after his return from Panama, General Smith 
was called upon to bear the heaviest domestic loss that had 
befallen him. Ivess than a year before, his second daugh- 
ter, a young girl of unusual beauty and charming char- 
acter, had met her death by a sad accident. General Smith 
and his family had by no means recovered from the shock 
of this sorrow, when they were called upon to mourn 
the loss of his mother, who died on the 22d day of April, 



150 Thomas Kilby Smith 

1869. This event, although it might have been expected 
ere long in the course of nature, was in itself a severe 
blow, because it too was the result of accidental circum- 
stances. At the time of her death Mrs. Smith was in the 
seventieth year of her age. Reference has been made to her 
untiring efforts in behalf of her son's advancement in the 
military profession. She had never been separated from him 
for any length of time, excepting during his field service, 
and the influence of her -strong character was felt by him 
during his career. She was but twenty years his senior, and 
as he was her eldest son there had always existed a con- 
geniality of temperament and a closeness of companionship 
not often to be seen even between parents and children of 
the most affectionate natures. The character and life of 
Mrs. Smith are well worthy of a separate memoir. She was 
on both sides of her family of pure English blood. From 
father to son her progenitors had been prominent from the 
early colonization of New England, for the most part as 
divines, but some of them had illustrated the profession of 
the law, some had been in mercantile life, and indeed, 
through her family connections she was related to many of 
the most notable of New England people. The family of 
Walter in the male line became extinct many years ago. 
The descendants on the female side, however, have a large 
representation. The father of Mrs. Smith, Mr. William 
Walter, was a very successful merchant, in the old-time 
meaning of the term, and sent his vessels from Boston to 
various parts of the globe. Mr. Walter died at the com- 
paratively early age of forty, leaving a large family of little 
children, who had already lost their mother, to the care of 
an uncle under whose direction they grew up. Eliza Bicker, 
the second daughter, became the wife of Captain George 
Smith, one of her father's master mariners. As has been 
said hitherto, they were married at Christ Church, Boston, 
by the Rev. Asa Eaton, on the 31st day of January, 1817. 
Captain Smith was eighteen years his wife's senior, but 
it may well be believed from his bearing and accomplish- 
ments that he had a most engaging personality. Mrs. 
Smith became the mother of ten children, five of whom 



Memoir 151 

survived. She experienced many of the vicissitudes that 
have fallen to the lot of American families, both gentle 
and simple, in moving from an old and settled community 
to the new West. She had to contend with an infirmity 
of lameness from an injury contracted dining her young 
womanhood, but so brave and cheerful was her spirit, so 
indomitable her energy, that she quailed under no trials, 
but bore her part with unfailing bravery. Gifted with a 
strong and vigorous mind, she was proficient in English 
literature, and whether with her pen or in conversation 
possessed a style both winning and perspicuous. She num- 
bered among her friends and correspondents many dis- 
tinguished men and women; and had it been her fate to have 
lived in an atmosphere more fitted to her temperament, she 
would have been still more widely known for her remarkable 
personality. 

The years that followed until 1880, were spent by General 
Smith in almost complete retirement, and unmarked by 
events of special interest, excepting such as concerned his 
domestic relations. Attached to the modest home to which 
he had moved his family was a small garden, and there in 
such intervals of health and strength as were permitted him, 
he devoted his attention to the cultivation of the earth. He 
had alwaj^s been extremely fond of this pursuit, for which he 
possessed undoubted talents. As old age prematurely came 
upon him, he found some solace for the trials and disappoint- 
ments of life in his works of horticulture and gardening. 
He kept a keen eye upon public events, however, and cor- 
responded from time to time with his old comrades and other 
friends. Acting upon the suggestion of the late David Paul 
Brown, of the Philadelphia Bar, he thought at one time of 
endeavoring to begin again as a lawyer, and in that city. 
Accordingly on Mr. Brown's motion, he was admitted to the 
Bar of the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania, on 
the 14th day of January, 1871. On that occasion he was 
enabled to present to the Court, through Mr. Brown, com- 
plimentary letters from Chief Justice Chase, his old preceptor 
in the law, and from the venerable Judge Bellamy Storer, 
before whom he had practised in the courts of Hamilton 



152 Thomas Kilby Smith 

County, Ohio. General Smith did not open an office in 
Philadelphia, however, and beyond a few winters in Wash- 
ington, when he transacted some business before the depart- 
ments and in the Court of Claims, he did not take advantage 
of his legal privileges. One of his greatest pleasures was in 
his association with the veteran soldiers who formed the 
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. 
He was honored with the post of Junior Vice-Commander of 
the Commandery of Pennsylvania, and thereby became at 
all times a member of the governing body of the order, the 
Commandery-in-Chief Whenever he could do so, he would 
attend the meetings, and always had a ready sympathy for 
soldiers of either army. He was strongly impressed with 
the view that the war for the Union was a contest for the 
maintenance of the Constitution in all its integrity. While 
heartily in favor of the abolition of slavery, he constantly 
regretted the strife and turmoil that followed the attempt to 
enforce the reconstruction acts, and bemoaned still more the 
evils and evil tendencies of our civilization. Disappointed 
but too frequently in the course adopted by his own political 
party, he found nothing congenial in the principles of the 
organization to which he had been so long in opposition. 
In 1880 he emerged from seclusion to give his aid in the can- 
vass of General Hancock, who had received the nomination 
of the Democratic party for the presidency. Prior to this 
event. General Grant had returned from his triumphal jour- 
ney around the world. Although many years have elapsed, 
the memory of that wonderful progress must still be fresh in 
the minds of all who followed it from nation to nation ; from 
the West to the extreme limits of the East, a plain American 
citizen had been received with an acclaim never rendered 
but to the greatest of men. At the termination of his journey, 
when he landed on the American continent, great cities vied 
with each other in the honors they paid him. In the city of 
Chicago a special effort was made by the surviving officers 
of the Armies of the Tennessee and the Cumberland, to meet 
again their old commander, and impelled by this feeling, 
General Smith made the journey to that city. No such 
gathering of ofl&cers of the war has taken place since that 



6. J 



Memoir 153 

memorable day, and it was a fitting climax to the progress 
of the great American soldier through his own country. Al- 
though political lines separated many of those who gathered 
then and afterwards to pay tribute to Grant, the hold he had 
upon their admiration and affection as a soldier never failed. 
When the great general reached the city of Philadelphia he 
was worthily entertained, and graceful recognition was paid 
to General Smith's military association with him by an invi- 
tation to participate in the ceremonies as a guest of the city. ' 

1 After the death of General Grant in 1885, General Smith was 
one of a Committee to prepare the usual circular upon the death of a 
companion by the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order 
of the I/oyal Legion. His view of the character of the great Union 
soldier appears in the following tribute : 

*' Circular No. 
" Series of 1885. 
••Whole No. 36. 

•' Headquarters Military Order of the 
" IvOYAi, Legion of the United States, 

" Phii.adei,phia, Pennsylvania, Oct. 7, 1885. 

Ulysses Simpson Grant. — Cadet U. S. Military Academy, July i, 
1839 ; Brevet Second Lieutenant 4th U. S. Infantry, July i, 1843 ; 
Second Lieutenant, September 30, 1845 ; First Lieutenant, September 
16, 1847 ; Captain, August 5, 1853 ; resigned, honorably discharged, 
July 31, 1854. 

" Brevetted First Lieutenant U. S. Army, September 8, 1847, 'for 
gallant conduct in the battle of Molino del Rey, Mexico.' Captain, 
September 13, 1847, ' for gallant conduct at Chepultepec, Mexico.' 

"Colonel 2ist Illinois Infantry, June 17, 1861 ; Brigadier-General 
U. S. Volunteers, August 9, 1861, to rank from May 17, 1861 ; Major- 
General U. S. Volunteers, February 16, 1862; Major-General U. S. 
Army, July 4, 1863 ; Lieutenant-General, March 2, 1864 ; General, 
July 25, 1866 ; vacated commission, March 4, 1869, being inaugurated 
President of the United States. 

" General U. S. Army (retired), March 3, 1885. 

"Elected in Commandery of Illinois, December 3, 1879. Insignia 
No. 2G06. 

" Transferred to Commandery of New York, May 2, 1883. 

" Commander Commandery of New York, May 7, 1884. 

" Born, April 27, 1822, at Point Pleasant, Ohio. 

" Died July 23, 1885, at Mt. McGregor, New York. 

"Whereas, The closing of the earthly career of the foremost 



154 Thomas Kilby Smith 

The defeat of General Hancock marked the close of any- 
active participation by General Smith in political affairs. It 
was an event that he greatly deplored, as his personal rela- 
tions with that superb soldier had been intimate, and he had 
for years endeavored to compass his nomination. Although 
not in certain health, General Smith had periods of consider- 
able activity. His greatest pleasure and hope, as his life 
drew towards a close, was in watching the development of 
the careers of his children. He had the satisfaction of see- 
ing one of his sons come to the Bar, and another to be 
ordained to the priesthood ; while a third was beginning a 
career of usefulness as an architect, and two younger sons 

soldier and the first citizen of the American Republic is an epoch-line 
in the nation's history, that event renders eminently fitting a formal 
expression of the heart-promptings of the united membership of the 
Acting Commandery-in-Chief of the Military Order of the Loyal 
Legion of the United States, with its clustered associations of the 
army and navy, by means of which that great commander won his 
triumphs, and compassed his chief life-work ; therefore, 

" Resolved, That, in the history of the United States during the 
past quarter of a century, we recognize as a central figure, in the field 
of arms, in the councils of state, and in the representative character 
of an American citizen at home and abroad. General Ulysses S. Grant : 
a soldier who led the armed forces of his government to final victory 
over the greatest rebellion which was ever subdued among men ; a 
Chief Magistrate who, during eight eventful years, was at the head 
of the national administration of the country thus saved ; a private 
citizen who received unparalleled honors from rulers and ruled, the 
world around ; and we realize that by his brilliant record and high at- 
tainment the glories of the American name have received new lustre 
and wider recognition, and there has been given added cause for grati- 
tude and rejoicing to every loyal citizen of the Great Republic. 

" Resolved, That, beyond all the glory of his great achievements 
on the field of battle, we perceive a grander glory in his magnanimity 
in the hour of victory, in his wise and successful pursuit of peace by 
international arbitration, and in his patriotic and fraternal spirit, 
which at the last found its exhibition and its reflex in the loving 
words of mutual regard passing between him and those whom he had 
met in deadly conflict ; and of which the culmination was seen in a 
re-united nation sorrowing over his lamented loss, in the sight of a 
sympathetic world. 

" Resolved, That, among the millions who truly honored and who 
sincerely mourn him, none can transcend, in an appreciative recogni- 



Memoir 155 

were still at school. One of his three surviving daughters 
had married, and after her widowhood, with his only grand- 
child, formed a part of his family. 

After General Hancock's defeat, General Smith was in- 
duced to make a brief visit to Kurope in company with his 
friend, the Honorable William Dorsheimer of New York. 
The reception he met there from those with whom he was 
associated — soldiers, statesmen, and diplomats, — was most 
distinguished. He was complimented by being the guest of 
the Comte de Paris, who had not then been exiled from 
France, at his royal Chateau d'Eu, and formed a friendship 
with that good soldier and historian that continued until the 

tion of his work and his worth, and in an intelligent sense of personal 
loss in his death, those who shared with him in the battlings and en- 
durances of his multiplied conflicts, and in the joys and rewards of 
his abundant success ; hence it is as those who not only knew him 
and were dear to him, but who were, in a sense, one with him in 
prosperity and in adversity, that the officers and members of this 
Commandery express their sense of exalted regard for his matchless 
taemory, and of reverent and tender sympathj' with those to whom 
he was united by the closest ties of blood and of aflFection, and who in 
the truest sense are personally bereaved by his entering into rest. 
"Thos. Kilby Smith, 

" Brevet Major-General U. S. V., 
"George W. Mindil, 

" Brevet Major-General U. S. V., 
" Chas. p. Herring, 

" Brevet Brigadier-General U. S. V., 
"John McGowan, 

" lyieutenant-Commander U. S. N., 
"Ci,ARKE Merchant, 

" Lieutenant-Commander (late) U. S. N., 
"H. Earnest Goodman, 

" Colonel U. S. V., 
*'H. Cl<AY Trumbui,!,, 
" Chapi^ain U. S. v., 

'^^ Committee. 
" By command of 

" Major-General Wineiei^d S. Hakcock, U. S. Army, 

" Acting Commander-in-Chief. 
"John P. Nichoi^son, 
" Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel U. S. V., 
* ' Official. ' ' Recorder. ' ' 



156 Thomas Kilby Smith 

end. In 1887, William Dorsheimer, who liad retired from 
the ofl&ce of United States Attorney for New York City after 
a notable career in the profession of the law and as Lieu- 
tenant-Governor and Member of Congress from New York, 
had assumed the proprietorship and editorial management 
of the New York Star. At that time the unfinished tomb of 
General Grant on the Riverside Drive was appealing to the 
sentiments of patriotic citizens, and Governor Dorsheimer 
conceived the idea of raising a popular fund to pay for it. He 
enlisted the interest of General Smith, who went to New York 
in the hope of aiding his friend in that and other projects con- 
nected with his newspaper. The excitement of life in New 
York had always had a peculiar charm for his temperament, 
and now forgetful of the burden of years and infirmities, he 
threw himself with ardor into the work before him. During 
the summer and autumn of 1887, he worked with assiduity 
and some measure of success ; but he had forgotten his limi- 
tations. The once superb physique could not respond much 
longer to the demands made upon it. He was taken ill in 
November, and gradually declined until his death on the 
14th of December. He met his end with quiet courage and 
dignity. The last sacraments of the Church were adminis- 
tered by the Rev. Father McKinnon, S.J., and after parting 
with his wife and some members of his family, he passed 
peacefully away. General Smith had become a convert to the 
Catholic Church in the year 1874, while making a visit to the 
venerable Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati, a man for whose 
personality he always had a profound regard. He numbered 
among his friends many of the religious of the Church, and 
though the larger part of his career had been outside of her 
fold, his end was under her sheltering arms. General 
Smith's remains were brought from New York for interment 
in the Parish Churchyard of St. Dominic near Holmesburg, 
Philadelphia. His funeral was conducted with simplicity, 
and was attended by many of his friends and military asso- 
ciates. The pallbearers were Hon. William Dorsheimer, 
Gen. Thomas Ewing, Col. John P. Nicholson, and Dr. 
H. Earnest Goodman. His second son, Theodore Dehon, 
who had become the Rev. Father Maurice of the Passionist 



Memoir 157 

Order, preached a touching discourse. In- the presence of 
the soldiers and friends standing beside the bier, he said i 

" Dkar Friends : 

' ' We have paid the last tribute of respect to him, whose 
mortal remains lie before us, whose whole life was one long 
act of devotion to friends. God Almighty draws the hearts 
of men to himself in various ways. He whom we mourn loved 
to look at God in Man. All his life he gave to the service 
of humanity. A tender father, an ardent patriot, the duties 
that he fulfilled superabundantly to family and country, were 
not sufl&cient to satisfy the deep craving for affection that, for 
so long, beat with every pulse in that fond heart now still 
forever. His arms reached forth to embrace all mankind. 
So frank, so brave, so open, so generous ! The artificial 
barriers that divide us childern of Adam, the temporary dis- 
tinction, that a wise Providence has placed between men, and 
also the division that has grown up as the unhappy heritage 
of sin and pride and discord, all these things chafed and 
fretted that noble spirit whose aspiration was for the perfect 
commune of undying fellowship, the union of comrades in 
heart and hand, which we trust he may enjoy in the rest of 
the saints. Therefore, dear friends, he loved you all — the 
lowest with the loftiest — and many, many, many who are 
here to-day in spirit with us, and who have been as true to 
him and to his beloved memory, as he was to those with the 
last breath of life he drew. Ma3' God touch us all here 
present, his family, his friends, his beloved companions in 
arms, with the spirit of absolute love which drew him at last 
to the hope and faith in which he died ; the hope of a 
blessed immortal:*-y, the faith in the Son of God who loved 
him and delivered himself for him and for us all. The bless- 
ings of Almighty God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, de- 
scend upon us and remain with us forever. ' ' 

The death of General Smith called forth expressions of 
profound regret and admiration from many sources. Those 
that he would have valued among the first came from his 
military friends. The I^oyal Legion of Pennsylvania issued 
the following memorial : 



158 Thomas Kilby Smith 

" Military Order of the Loyai, Legion op the 
United States. 

" Circular No. 5. -| 
" Series of 1888. I 
" Whole No. 156. J 

" headquarters commander y of the 
" State of Pennsyi^vania, 

" Phii^adeIvPHIa, April 3, 1888. 

* ' Read at Stated Meeting of the Board of Officers, April 
2, 1888. 

" Thomas Kii.by Smith. — Lieutenant-Colonel 54tli Ohio 
Infantry September 9, 1861 ; Colonel, October 31, 1861 ; 
discharged for promotion, August 25, 1863. 

" Brigadier-General, U. S. Volunteers, August 11, 1863 ; 
honorably mustered out January 15, 1866. 

" Brevetted Major-General, U. S. Volunteers March 13, 
1865, ' for gallant and meritorious services during the war.' 

" Elected September 19, 1866, Class I., Insignia 376. 

" Junior Vice-Commander of the Commandery, 1873-1877. 

'* Born at Boston, Mass., September 23, 1820. 

" Died at New York City, December 14, 1887. 

" No fairer illustration could be found of the volunteer 
citizen at his best, as developed in the experiences of our 
civil war, than is furnished in the character and record of 
Brevet Major-Gen. Thomas Kilby Smith. Born of a patri- 
otic Puritan ancestry in the city of Boston, he was, by the 
removal of his parents while he was yet a child, brought up 
under the stimulating and broadening influence of that 
newer New England life in the earlier West, which has 
shown its potency in the men it has supplied as our nation's 
leaders and defenders. 

' ' In addition to other advantages in his education, he re- 
ceived the basal lessons of a military training in a prepara- 
tory school conducted by Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel ; and 
again, after his graduation from Woodward College, he was 
a favored and a favorite law student of the Hon. Salmon P. 
Chase. Honored with special appointments by the national 
administration, and by the courts of his adopted State, he 



Memoir 159 

was at the outbreak of the civil war not in full political 
accord with the administration in power ; but his absorbing 
patriotism and his profound loyalty to the fundamental 
principles of our nationality overbore all minor considera- 
tions, and he promptly proffered his services to the govern- 
ment for any position in which he could be made available 
for its support ; and he was assigned by Governor Dennison, 
of Ohio, to the command of a regiment of infantry. 

" Reporting in February, 1862, to Gen. William T. Sher- 
man, at Paducah, Kentucky, he was at once under the best 
conceivable conditions for efficient training in his new pro- 
fession, and for the intelligent recognition of his services by 
his superiors. During the important battle of Shiloh he was 
suddenly called to the command of his brigade by the 
wounding of its commander, and in that position he bore 
himself with conspicuous gallantry. General Sherman says 
of him in this emergency, ' He was at that time compara- 
tively young, very handsome, and unusually well posted in 
his profession.' Referring to his return with his brigade 
under a heavy fire from the enemy. General Sherman adds : 
* As General Smith rode at the head of his men I thought I 
never saw more handsome conduct under fire.' 

" Steadily gaining in the knowledge of his profession and 
in the confidence of his superiors, he was much in severe 
service after this vigorous beginning at Shiloh. He was in 
the siege of Corinth, and he bore an active part in Sherman's 
co-operative movements at Vicksburg, having command of a 
brigade in the battle of Chickasaw Bayou, and participating 
in engagements at Arkansas Post, Rolling Fork, Haines 
Bluff, Baker's Creek, Big Black River, and in two direct 
assaults on Vicksburg before settling down to the siege of 
that stronghold. 

' ' By special assignment he was for some months on the 
staff of General Grant ; and he was entrusted with various 
difficult and delicate commissions in the line of bearing 
despatches between General Grant and General Banks, and 
in flag of truce communications with the Confederate au- 
thorities on the subject of the treatment of colored soldiers. 
He was also at the head of an important court of inquiry at 



t6o Thomas Kilby Smith 

Milliken's Bend, lyouisiana, and again he had a part in the 
battle at that point. He accompanied General Grant as his 
acting chief of staff on an of&cial examination of the positions 
and forces in the Army of the Tennessee, then commanded 
by Gen. James B. McPherson. He was in active field ser- 
vice at Natchez, and on the Black and Yazoo Rivers, until 
February, 1864, when he moved with General Sherman to 
Meridian, Mississippi, and had a part in the second battle of 
Champion Hills. In March, 1864, he was assigned to a part 
in the Red River expedition, in Louisiana ; and in that cam- 
paign he did important and brilliant service, — first in the 
capture of Fort De Russy, and afterwards in the preservation 
of Admiral Porter's fleet, and of the heavily laden transports 
which it convoyed, at a time when a greatly superior force 
' came in,' as Admiral Porter expresses it, ' certain of 
victory.' 

" After his part in the Red River expedition. General 
Smith was on sick leave for some time ; although for two 
years after his entering service he neither applied for nor 
received a leave of absence either longer or shorter, nor was 
he ever off duty in that period, not seeing his wife or chil- 
dren meanwhile. In January, 1865, he was in command of 
a division of detachments of the Army of the Tennessee. He 
was a valued and important witness before the Committee 
on the Conduct of the War, and it was said of him there 
that he was a notable instance of a general officer having no 
personal grievance to lay bare. Later he was in command 
of the District of Southern Alabama and Florida, and again 
of the District and Post of Mobile. Finally, in January, 
1866, after more than four years of arduous and responsible 
service, he was honorably mustered out as Brevet Major- 
General U. S. Volunteers. 

"As an evidence of the high esteem in which General 
Smith was held for his personal worth and for his military 
services by those who were in every way qualified to judge 
him fairly, it is a noteworthy fact, that both Generals Sher- 
man and Grant repeatedly recommended his promotion as a 
brigadier-general before it was finally accorded to him by 
President Lincoln in August, 1863 ; and that they wrote of 



Memoir i6i 

him to others in terms of exceptional commendation. In 
February, 1863, General Sherman wrote of him, ' His record 
is perfect, his habits excellent, his endurance wonderful, his 
bravery a little rash, his judgment good, and all he wants is 
hard study of books and men ; I mean of course militarj^ text- 
books and the men who compose large armies. He has com- 
manded a brigade, and now commands one, and naturally 
should be 'commissioned as a brigadier.' In recommending 
his promotion in March, 1863, General Grant said, ' His ad- 
vancement has been won upon the field of battle and in camp 
in disciplining his men. Promotion on Colonel Smith would 
be most worthily bestowed, and would not fall on one with 
whom the question would become, " What will you do with 
him? " ' Yet later, in writing to General Smith's mother 
after her son's promotion. General Grant said, ' I congratu- 
late you upon his promotion, you will believe me when I say 
sincerely ; because it was upon my recommendation that he 
has been promoted. I do not know that Colonel Smith was 
aware of my having recommended him. At all events I did 
not tell him so.' And General Grant added that he was 
' sincerely the friend ' of General Smith, ' with whom ' he 
had now ' become intimately acquainted, ' and ' acquaintance 
with him only ripens into friendship. ' 

" The later years of General Smith's life were passed in 
the quiet of a home life, in marked contrast with the stirring 
scenes in which he bore so prominent a part in the days of 
his military service. But it was a life which illustrated in 
its unselfish regard for the dear ones of his family, and in 
the courtliness and dignity of his personal bearing, the very 
qualities which had evidenced themselves in his devotion to 
his country, in his considerate regard for the men of his 
command, and in his personal absorption in his military 
duties in their time and place, when his soldier life was his 
only life. ' Sometimes, ' he said of these quiet later years, 
' in my solitude I have fancied myself quite forgotten, and 
have looked back upon the conflict, when I was a man 
among men, almost as a dream of the night. ' Yet that that 
seeming dream of night was a reality of realities in his ex- 
istence was manifest in nis face and form and manner at all 



1 62 Thomas Kilby Smith 

times. In view of the strength of his army impressions, 
and of the contrast to them which the occupations of his later 
years suppUed, General Smith's love for the Loyal I^egion 
and for the companionships and associations which it con- 
tinued, to him was peculiarly tender and hearty. In speak- 
ing of this fact, he said, ' I find my home, my heart, my 
treasure, in that band of companions who have given me 
countenance, comfort, the sweet savor of companionship, 
when I had nowhere else beyond the limits of my own 
threshold to go. ' 

" And so it is that our lamented companion, Gen. Thomas 
Kilby Smith illustrated the choicest characteristics, and was 
one of the best representatives of the membership of the 
Military Order of the lyOyal lyCgion ; and that he is sure of 
being held in special honor and in loving remembrance by 
his companions to that organization, — both for what he had 
done and for what he was. 

" H. C1.AY TrumbuIvIv, 

" Chaplain loth Conn. Infantry. 
" H. Earne;st Goodman, 

" Colonel U. S. Vols. 
"W. H. H. Davis, 

" Brevet Brig.-Gen. U. S. Vols. 

" Committee. 
" By command of 
" Brevet Major.-Gen. D. McM. Gregg, U. S. V., 

" Commander. 
"John P. Nicholson, Brevet Lieut.-Col., U. S. V., 



Recorder. 



Official : 

" Recorder." 



The Ohio Society of New York, adopted the following 
minute : 

' ' The Ohio Society of New York learn with great sorrow 
of the sudden death in this city on the morning of the 14th 
inst., of our distinguished friend and fellow member. Gen. 
Thomas Kilby Smith. His warm, generous nature, his 



Memoir 1 63 

splendid manhood, his patriotism and bravery and soldierly- 
qualities so markedly manifest in the late War of the Re- 
bellion, commands our profoundest respect and our highest 
admiration. 

' ' The Committee respectfully recommend the appointment 
of the following members to attend the funeral of our 
lamented friend and to convey to the bereaved family the 
warmest sympathies of this society : Gen. Thomas Ewing, 
Gen. Benjamin I^e Fevre, and George W. McGill. 

" C. W. MOULTON, 

" Warren Higley, 
" Geo. B. Hibbard, 

" Committee." 

General Sherman paid his personal tribute at a meeting 
of the latter society, in these characteristic words : 

' ' I am very willing to testify to the character of your late 
esteemed member. I first met him at Paducah, where he 
reported to me with the 54th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, of 
which he was colonel. He was at that time comparatively 
young, very handsome, and unusually well posted in his 
profession. Where he got this knowledge of military tactics 
and science I do not know. His regiment then wore the 
zouave uniform, which he afterwards had the good sense to 
drop. 

' ' He was with me throughout the following campaigns. 
Our operations on the Tennessee River have already been 
well chronicled. On the first day at Shiloh, Smith was with 
Stuart, guarding the ford at I^ick Creek. His command 
was driven back always fighting obstinately. The next 
morning they came back to me on the extreme right under 
a heavy fire. As General Smith rode at the head of his 
men, I thought I never had seen more handsome conduct 
under fire. This was on the 7th of April, 1862. 

' ' After being with me through the entire siege of Vicks- 
burg, the march on Meridian, and the whole campaign, 
General Smith passed out of the range of my personal obser- 
vation, but I have corresponded with him ever since. He 
was genial, kindly, of good character, and entitled to our 



164 Thomas Kilby Smith 

entire respect — a good soldier and an admirable citizen. We 
all regard him with unusual aflFection. ' ' 

Notwithstanding a state of invalidism that became settled 
from a date long preceding the close of the war, the ardent, 
sanguine temperament of General Smith, and his unusually- 
handsome presence made it diificult for his family and friends 
to realize even at the last that he had become an old man. 
He had the rare faculty of making friends with the young, 
so that, as the men of his own generation passed away, he 
found consolation among those who came after them. The 
impression he made upon his intimate associates is well shown 
by the tribute of Mr. Dorsheimer, who followed him so soon 
to the grave. In the editorial announcing his death, occurs 
this passage : " It is not easy to describe a character so made 
up of gentle and noble qualities. We prefer to think of him 
as a soldier, a name that befits him best. For he was brave, 
generous, open-hearted, yet reticent and self-restrained. He 
had the pride that goes with valor, and a steadfast devotion 
to the cause he had espoused and to the men who trusted 
him. There never was a man more faithful to his country 
and to duty. ' ' 

He was called upon to bear much sorrow and many disap- 
pointments, yet he maintained himself with a quiet philosophy 
in the face of danger that never forsook him. 

He loved nature in all her manifestations, and was never 
happier than when, in field or forest, he could renew the in- 
spirations of his early manhood. To watch the flight of 
birds, to listen to their songs, to study the intelligence of 
animals, to steep his very being in God's beautiful creation, 
was to him an unceasing joy. 

His virtues and his faults were those of a character formed 
for lofty activities. Where he failed, it was from overwhelm- 
ing difficulties ; and to the last his aims were always for the 
first rank. 

Let this imperfect memoir close with a daughter's tribute 
— the evidence of a love no martial victories could win. 



Memoir 165 

"O Lord, Lord, the strength of my salvation, Thou hast over- 
shadowed my head in the day of battle,"— Ps. cxxxix., 8, 

We tread the fair home fields, the sunny slopes, 

Just as of old ; 
While in our hearts the dear God-given hopes 

Spring manifold. 

Yet are we mourners, for our eyes have seen 

The face of Death ; 
We late have wept with bitter grief and keen 

The passing breath. 

" O Spare him, Lord," we cried, '* in mercy spare, 

For we are weak ; 
And we so love the brow, the silver hair, 

The furrowed cheek." 

We have so loved him, he the chiefest pride, 

The living light 
Of our glad home : — now, all our joy beside 

Is lost in night. 

The tender father and the honored friend — 

The soldier brave — 
The wise commander, fearless to the end, 

Lies in his grave. 

Not on the battlefield, and not in strife, 

Closed that firm eye ; 
No guilty foeman took his noble life, 

Nor saw him die. 

Yet died he soldierly, and, calm at last, 

He bore his part ; 
Brave unto death, as brave in battles past, 

Was that great heart. 

Still falls the sunlight, still the earth is gay — 

The sky is blue ; 
O happy world ! Come mourn for him to-day 

Who laughed with you. 

Come mourn for him ; 't is now that tears should fall 

And pleasures cease ; 
While sorrow-stricken hearts to heaven call, 

For light and peace. 

Hei.e;n Grace Smith. 



LETTERS 



Cincinnati, Feb. 13, 1852. 
My dear Wife : 

I had the honor, for such I suppose it must be called, of a 
private introduction to Kossuth last evening at his apart- 
ments at the Burnett House. His room of reception was 
fitted up in gorgeous style. I was ushered in through a line 
of guards, composed of Hungarians in rich apparel who keep 
wait in his anteroom after the manner and style of lords in 
waiting in foreign courts. Part of them are guards from the 
Hungarian army, and all are armed — for it is reported that 
he dreads assassination. We were received at his door by 
Madame Kossuth, who withdrew after the ceremony of in- 
troduction. She was richly but plainly dressed, A woman 
of commanding appearance with an exceedingly brilliant eye, 
not beautiful, and wearing in her countenance the traces of 
grief and habitual chagrin. My glance at her was hasty. 
The likeness of the public print of her is obvious. Kossuth 
received our party of three persons standing at the further 
corner of the apartment, polite, affable, choice in his language, 
though with a broken and confused enunciation, difficult at 
first to understand. He was elegantly dressed in velvet, and 
smoking a cigar — his constant habit. He is receiving in 
regal state the adulation of the American public, who cringe 
to him and bow to him as the subjects of a despot. . . . 

Washington, June 26, 1853. 

Tell my dear mother, though of course she reads all my 
letters, how very happy her letters make me. I have but a 

167 



1 68 Thomas Kilby Smith 

short time since wakened from a dream, with her soft hand 
clasped in mine. I had dreamed I was in the old house with 
father, dogs, and all about me ; that we had walked to the 
garden, he on one side, she on the other, and that there we 
stood together, talked and planned ; and the young vines just 
planted were springing at our feet, and the grass and clover 
so fresh and green, all so vivid, so real, his eye upon me with 
that proud fond look full of confidence and love, that when 
I woke I found it hard to realize it was but the recollection of 
the past embodied in a dream. He always comes to me in my 
sleep, and if there is truth in the spirit theory is with me by 
night and by day. Nobody has ever loved me as he did, and 
he loved none as he loved me. I am always a child when I 
think of him ; the past seems my real, the present a dream. 
My dear mother is the only one who can sympathize with 
my present state of feeling. As she reads what I now write, 
she too will think of some bright moments in all that dark 
past, green isles in the vast dead sea of trouble, and as she 
thinks of the curly headed child, the earnest boj^ they both 
were so proud of, a tear will dim her eye, she will forget the 
man who writes, memories like the rush of water will over- 
flow her whole heart and she will yearn, as I do till , it almost 
breaks. 

Washington, July 27, 1S53. 

In respect of my promotion, I have only to say that on the 
first of July I was appointed to a very honorable position in 
what is called the First Division of the Appointment Bureau 
in the Post Ofiice Department — a place which gives me con- 
trol of the appointments in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and 
Minnesota, and that my salary will be $1500 per annum. 



Washington, May 2, 1854. 

The Capitol grounds are very beautiful. The grass, to- 
day and yesterday, was freshly mown and now looks like 
velvet. All sorts of flowers are blooming, the trees are in a 



Letters 1 69 

fresh livery of green, and countless birds are singing in their 
branches. " The time of the singing birds has come." . . . 
You will notice by the papers I forward to you by this 
day's mail that yesterday I had the honor of being admitted 
to the Supreme Court. 



Washington, Dec. 16, 1854. 
Your friend Mr. Stanton has been in the city some time, 
has called once or twice at the house, and will dine with me 
to-morrow. He has very much changed for the better. I 
never saw him look so well. He has achieved great reputa- 
tion in the Supreme Court. 

Cincinnati, May 12, 1861. 

There are fifteen thousand troops encamped near the city 
with more pouring in, provisions have risen above New 
York prices. The whole city is up in arms and all business, 
save in the supply shops, has ceased. The courts have vir- 
tually adjourned. The embargo upon the exportation of our 
great staple, pork, has ruined thousands. The steamboat 
interest is at an end. God knows what the result will be. 

Washington, July 20, 1861. 

The city is in great excitement and filled with rumors 
from the seat of war. We have nothing yet however that 
is at all reliable. I suppose there will be some fighting to- 
day or to-morrow. 

Washington, July 22, 1861. 

As you will probably have seen by the papers, before you 
receive this letter, there has been a terrible battle fought at 
' ' Manassas Gap, ' ' about twenty-six miles from here, and as 
you may not have seen, our army, at least the right wing, 
has been badly whipped. The city is in great excitement, 



1 70 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the streets filled with fljang soldiers, disbanded, disorganized, 
without ofl&cers and without a rallying point. Up to five 
o'clock our men behaved well and victory was apparently 
with the U. S. troops, but at that time a large number of 
them became panic stricken by the appearance of a body of 
rebel cavalry and took flight, which became a general stam- 
pede. A member of Congress, Mr. Blake, who was witness 
of the engagement, has told me all about it. He says when 
the rout commenced that the behavior of our men was per- 
fectly sickening. That they threw away their muskets and 
haversacks and fled like frightened sheep. Teamsters cut 
their horses loose from their wagons and left their baggage 
and stores of all kinds scattered upon the road, which was 
strewn for miles with guns, pistols, ammunition, rice, sugar, 
flour, horse-feed, blankets, everything, in short, that goes to 
make up the impedimenta of an army, while broken and 
overturned wagons and carriages (for an immense number 
of citizens went out to witness what they called the races, 
expecting to see the rebel forces flee), the shrieks of the 
wounded, and the pitiful moaning of those too tired to make 
headway and who were trampled upon by the stronger who 
came after, conspired to make an hideous ending of the day. 
The enemy in pursuit did not hesitate to bayonet or shoot 
any of the wounded found by the wayside. They propose 
no quarter. The dead and wounded are being brought in 
by hundreds. All day ambulances are passing my window 
on their way to the hospital freighted with their ghastly 
loads. A mother, Mrs, McCook, living next door, has just 
received the dead body of her son borne from the battlefield 
in the arms of his father, who brings the news that another 
son has been killed in the same engagement. They had 
eight sons and four nephews all in the service. Many people 
here are frantic in the apprehension that Washington will be 
taken. Beauregard has an hundred thousand troops now 
concentrated under his command, well disciplined, well fed, 
and flushed with victory. He may press his present suc- 
cesses. 

Great complaint is made of General Scott ; this as a mat- 
ter of course ; if our army had been victorious, great praise 



Letters 1 7 1 

liad been awarded him, for it is only success in arms that 
meets applause ; nevertheless, I am forced to the opinion 
that our army was in no condition for a great battle. We 
lack ofl&cers of accomplishment in the profession, and in whom 
our men can repose confidence in the hour of danger and 
trial. There was no such thing as discipline or obedience to 
orders yesterday, particularly at such times when obedience 
was most necessary. Indeed I have heard to-day of a 
colonel who all day long was countermanding his general's 
orders, and who boasted that his men would obey him 
sooner than their general. Consequently, there was no 
turning the tide when flight commenced, the men were 
without confidence in their officers, who, finding their orders 
unavailing, fled side by side with them, and the only cry 
was * ' Sauve qui pent ' ' and ' ' the Devil take the hinder- 
most." General Schenck and his aides are in town, but I 
have not been able to find Donn. I understand he is safe 
and shall endeavor to see him this evening. I tried very 
hard yesterday to get out to the battlefield, but though a 
member of Congress gave me a pass he had got for himself 
from General Scott, I failed to procure any kind of a convey- 
ance and it was too far to walk. We have had a drenching 
rain all day which makes it still harder for the men to rally. 



Washington, July 24, 1861. 

I spent last evening with Mr. Chase and his daughter. 
They had a large number of wounded and tired soldiers 
sleeping in the house and had fed more than a hundred 
during the day. They were all low-spirited at the ill-success 
of our arms. I met there Bishop Mcllvaine, Mr. Horton of 
Ohio, and Governor Sprague of Rhode Island, who led his 
troops in the engagement of Sunday, and who, from appear- 
ances is, I judge, the accepted suitor of Miss Katie. 

Meanwhile, I am forced to the conclusion that the admin- 
istration as a whole is weak and that it has undertaken a 
contract too heavy to carry out. The South is not composed 



172 Thomas Kilby Smith 

of cowards or fools or men without money or means, and the 
North will find before they get through that they are not so 
easily conquered as they had supposed. However I will not 
discuss politics with you on paper. 



Washington, July 26, 1861. 

I can imagine you to have very many inconveniences to 
put up with as you are now placed, but you must remember 
it is only for a season, that better times are in store for us, 
and that above all we now are at war and sufiering all its 
horrors. Contrast your and your children's condition with 
that of those who are upon or near the battlefields or on the 
line of march of the armies or near their various encamp- 
ments. You read of these things in the newspapers and 
your blood thrills with horror, but the reading is nothing to 
witnessing with your own senses the present results of this 
sickening fratricidal strife. The scenes I will not pretend 
to write about are continually before my eyes and I con- 
tinually thank God that you and the children are in what I 
consider a place of refuge. 



Washington, August i, 1861. 

You speak of Grandma's having been much afiected by 
the account I gave of the bringing home of the body of 
young McCook by his father to the house adjoining that in 
which I live. It is only one of the thousand horrors, I have 
been almost an eye witness of, but as this one seems to have 
been of peculiar interest to you, I give for Grandma's ear a 
detail of the circumstances as given me by one who saw 
them. Shortly after the main body of the army was in re- 
treat, a charge was made by the enemy's cavalry upon the 
hospital grounds at Elgin's Ford, and those around the well 
who were procuring water to carry to the wounded. At this 
time, Charles McCook, only seventeen years of age, of Com- 
pany F, 2d Regiment Ohio Volunteers, the youngest son in 



Letters 1 73 

the army of Judge Daniel McCook, was also at the well when 
his return to his regiment was cut off by a section of the 
cavalry. He retreated along a line of fence and discharged 
his musket, killing one of the enemy. He then entered an 
open field and was attacked by a leader of the troop, who had 
been attracted to him by his fatal shot, and commanded to 
surrender. He replied, " No, never ; never to a rebel." 
He manfully kept the trooper off with his bayonet, his gun 
being empty. The rebel not being able to make him pris- 
oner, took a course around him and shot him in the back ; 
then approaching the wounded boy, he cried, " Now, damn 
you, will you surrender?" He replied, "No, never, no, 
no, never." The father of young McCook, who with an- 
other gallant son, Edwin S. McCook, had been busy all day 
carrying the wounded from the battlefield to the hospital, 
discovering the perilous situation of his brave son, called out, 
" Young man, surrender." He answered, " No, never, 
never. ' ' The trooper then began striking him with the flat 
of his sword over the shoulders saying at the same time he 
would pierce him through. His father seeing that his boy 
was wounded insisted upon his surrendering as he had done 
all that a soldier should do. The noble boy, bleeding, 
unarmed, and almost helpless, then surrendered. His father 
then approached the commander and asked for the prisoner 
to place him in the hospital, offering to hold himself re- 
sponsible for his safety as a prisoner of war, when the villain 
replied, " Damn your responsibility, I know you." After 
some words, the wounded prisoner was reluctantly handed 
over to be taken to the hospital. The trooper then dashed 
around the hospital to assist in taking off Lieutenant Wilson, 
of the 2d New York Regiment, who was then in the hands 
of a horseman. This dragoon was shot by a stray ball as 
the trooper came up, and Lieutenant Wilson, finding himself 
free from his captor, drew his revolver and shot his pursuer 
in the neck, killing him instantly. 

The above is only one of many instances of individual 
bravery and of the bitter, terrible animosity that exists be- 
tween the opposing forces. And yet this is onl)^ the begin- 
ning of what I feel confident will be a long and bloody war. 



1 74 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Now, my dear wife, I want you to be of good heart. I 
feel as if I ought to stay here a little longer and leave no 
stone unturned in the procurement of some place of some 
kind under the government. It is the only chance in these 
war times. I am sure you would not be content for me to 
rest in peace, supine and idle, while others are gathering 
laurels and winning fame. 



HEADQUARTERS CaMP DENNISON, 

Sept. 12, 1861. 

As you will have seen in the papers ' ' I have gone and 
done it." Now keep a stiff upper lip and sustain and 
cheer me all you can, and by being cheerful yourself keep 
me in good spirits. I have an arduous and responsible duty 
to perform, but by God's help hope to get through with 
honor to myself. Have been full of business and should 
have written to you yesterday, my first day in camp, which 
was wet and muddy enough, I assure you. We shall be here 
for some weeks. It will take at least four weeks I think to 
organize my regiment. 

Direct " lyieut.-Col. Thos. Kilby Smith, Commanding 
54th Regt., Camp Dennison. The weather to-day is very- 
fine, the camp drying up very fast. 

Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. U. S. A., 

Sept. 23, 1861. 

You have now two great causes of anxiety, your grand- 
father and your husband. His life or death you cannot in 
any wise control but must accept the dispensation of Provi- 
dence. For me have no fear, lay aside all anxiety. Life 
with me has been a battle from my youth. I am familiar 
with and almost rejoice at the conflict. I have been pre- 
served from terrible dangers that have beset my pathway. 
My life has many a time been not worth a straw. I have 
passed through flood and field. Have felt the knife of the 
assassin and almost the ball of the would-be murderer, and 



Letters 1 75 

yet I am alive now for some end. No battle, no exposure, 
no responsibility can be put upon me now greater than what 
I have passed through. I may fail and I may fall, but I 
have full faith that there is an end to be accomplished by 
me. Therefore you should have no fear for me now that 
you had not before the war began, and the same faith that 
the good God will preserve me in the field or on the war- 
path, who had me in his holy keeping when far below the 
surface of the briny deep. I know this is poor consolation 
to offer to a lonely wife, fainting and feeble and sore beset by 
troubles, but it is consolation, nevertheless, if you give it due 
consideration. 



Headquarters 54th Regt., O. V. U. S A., 

Camp Dennison, Ohio, October 6, 1861, 



I do not know, and can scarcely form a conjecture, as to 
what service my command will be in or as to where I shall 
be ordered when the regiment is ready for the field. I am 
now waiting for an equipment and arms. Shall very soon 
have men enough and am anxious for marching orders to 
any point away from Camp Dennison. I have been made 
commandant of the post and have now under my command, 
not only my own regiment but four others, with artillerists, 
besides the control of the post hospital, and no small care in 
itself, as you will imagine when I tell you we had two deaths 
last night, and have buried twenty-five men since I have been 
here. If I only had subordinate officers upon whom I could 
rely these responsibilities would only stimulate me to a 
pleasant excitement. Indeed I feel always a pleasurable 
thrill when real earnest work is before me — work that is be- 
fitting a man. I have reason to believe that I am popular 
with the command, that for the most part my men all like 
me ; which is a great point gained in the army. Yet I have 
been pressed with many and grave obstacles, wholly unfore- 
seen and unprovided for, that perhaps hereafter I shall have 
an opportunity to explain to you. You may be surprised 



1 76 Thomas Kilby Smith 

not to see my name or my regiment mentioned in what is 
called the Military Column of the newspapers. I have sedu- 
lously from the first endeavored to keep away from stupid 
newspaper puffery or notice. Time, and my own merits, if 
I have any, will show whether I have judgment and military 
skill enough to organize, prepare, and drill a regiment for the 
field and make it serviceable after I get the men into active 
service, and meanwhile it is worse than absurd to attempt 
by monied influences or otherwise the manufacture of a fic- 
titious fame. 



Regimental Headquarters 54TH R. O. V. U. S. A., 

Camp Dennison, Ohio, Nov. i, 1861. 

Stephen' is to the fore and doing well. He plays many 
parts, hostler, body servant, cook, groom, laundress, seam- 
stress, secretary, steward, and boy about the tent, and has 
taken to soldiering with such a vim that half the time when 
I want him I find him standing on his head with a musket 
between his teeth, swallowing a sword or plunging a bayonet 
into a zouave. He carries arms openly and above board to 
his great delight, the only drawback to his perfect happi- 
ness being the disability in the way of uniform — an officer's, 
of course — for he has an unearthly, morbid, and uncontroll- 
able contempt for a private soldier, whom he looks upon as 
little better than a dog. 

I have just received a letter from the Adjutant- General 
notifying me that the Governor of Ohio has promoted me to 
the colonelcy, so I suppose I am a step higher in the esti- 
mation of somebody. One thing is certain, my boys and I 
have got as bloody a set of preaching, praying, stealing, 
fighting, riproaring zouaves as the war turns out. . . . 
You would laugh sometimes if you were here to listen to 
the rascals yelling ... for the " old Colonel," as they 
call me. 



' His body servant. 



Letters 177 

Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. U. S. A., 

Camp Dennison, Ohio, Dec. 14, 1861. 
My dear Mother : 



It will not be so difficult for me to get my regiment into 
the field as you imagine, after they shall be in readiness to 
go, which I suppose will be the case in a few days. It is not 
to be regretted that we have not been upon the march before 
as we should not have been in active service, but merely 
passed from one camp to another with the merest skirmish- 
ing to amuse us ; meanwhile it will be the better drilled. 

Your political views are as usual sound, but I much be- 
lieve there will be warm work in the South and in Kentucky. 
The blood of our people is fairly up and neither side will be 
satisfied without a battle. However all this is in the future 
and giv^es me no concern. My only anxiety now is to get my 
men in marching trim and march and keep on marching for 
the balance of my days. 

I reckon the sword will come from Boston in due season. 
William Dehon wrote me that one was ordered and would 
be forwarded to me sometime in December. 



We too have lovely weather, balmy as the first of June, 
and oh, mother, as I look out in the early morning or stand 
alone at sunset upon some hillside, I too miss the gentle smile, 
the faded form ; everything is here to remind me of him. ' I 
dare not write of him. I loved him very dearly, more than 
I have loved anybody in the world, I believe, except perhaps 
you. I am sure I loved him much more than I have ever 
loved my own children — but I must check these rising feel- 
ings. I cannot permit myself to dwell upon those who have 
gone. I turn to this band of men about me, a large family 
who look to me for guidance, support, and succor — every- 
thing is abandoned. I feel as if I had cut loose from the 
world or all that part of it that has gone before. 



' His brother, Charles W. G. Smith, who died in New York as Secre- 
tary of the Union Defence Committee, May, 1861, aged twenty years. 



1 78 Thomas Kilby Smith 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. U. S. A., 

Camp Dennison, January 11, 1862. 



My name in the service and elsewhere is unfortunate. 
There are four Colonels Smith in Ohio alone ; one of them 
is Kirby Smith, a name by which I am not unfrequently 
known, and by the by, I notice that there is one by that 
name in the rebel army. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. U. S. A., 

Camp Dennison, January 26, 1862. 

To-day the sword is received, and a very elegant and 
superior sword it is, I assure j^ou, with its double scabbard 
and sword-belt all complete, well worthy of the donors. ' My 
only prayer now is that by the grace of God, I may be en- 
abled so to use it that they may not believe the gift ill -be- 
stowed. I shall acknowledge the favor to-morrow if my time 
is not too much cut up. I have my head, hands, and heart 
full now and find every moment precious to me. . . . 

You ask me to publish the correspondence between the 
kind friends who have presented me with the splendid sword 
and myself. I am almost ashamed to publish now the com- 
pliments through the daily papers. I would prefer, unless 
they preferred the other course, to wait until I had accom- 
plished something that would be deemed worthy of the 
honor. One of my former associates at the Cincinnati Bar, 
who has taken the field. Colonel McCook, has recently at 
the battle of Fishing Creek, near Somerset, won laurels. 
Several Cincinnatians distinguished themselves, some were 
killed, and many were wounded. I do not like, or rather 
I do not think it quite in good taste to publish at this time, 
that which it would have been quite proper and of immense 
benefit to me and my regiment to have published a month 
or six weeks ago. I have not fully made up my mind, how- 
ever, in regard to the matter, and whatever I do, you shall 
be at once apprised of. 

' Presented by friends in Massachusetts. 



Letters 179 

I have the honor to command a regiment composed of as 
fine a body of men as perhaps were ever got together, and, 
if there is faith in human nature, they are all devoted to me. 
I feel sometimes, barring the deeds, like a hero of romance. 
I have three fine horses; one of them a stallion, that nobody 
can back or manage but myself; the very realization of all I 
ever hoped for in a horse, perfect in size, in symmetry of 
form, in color, in carriage, in speed, and in gait. His har- 
ness is complete. My pistols are the best of Colt's revol- 
vers, with one of which I cut a card one inch on the line 
below the centre at a hundred and twenty-five yards dis- 
tance a few days ago. I govern at despotic will nearly a 
thousand men, each one of whom leaps with alacrity to per- 
form my bidding, and some, perhaps many, of whom would 
count it small cost to spill his blood for me. A soldier is 
always guarding the door of my tent, a line of soldiers al- 
ways surrounds it, all my individual wants are supplied, the 
most of my wishes anticipated. I have recruited from all 
over the State, and all over the State I have friends, particu- 
larly among the women who are deluging me with presents 
for the regiment. The other day I received boxes containing 
two hundred exceedingly fine country woven blankets, with 
an equal number of fiannel shirts, flannel drawers, pairs of 
socks and mittens from the ladies of Fayette County. Just 
afterwards the ladies of Preble County sent an immense 
quantity of blankets, socks, etc. The day before yesterday 
the ladies of Clifton sent some two dozen pillows, with cases, 
a number of sheets, shirts, old linen, etc., for hospital pur- 
poses, and to-day a large quantity of coverlids, pillows, pre- 
served and canned fruits, etc. , were sent down for the hospital. 
Just now as I am writing a man has come in with a dozen 
or two fresh eggs, each one carefully wrapped in paper, with 
a can of peaches, a bottle of vinegar, and a jar of tomatoes 
for the Colonel. Scarce a day passes that they don't send 
me chickens and all that sort of thing. Now, on the other 
side, I have a terrible responsibility, the mothers and fathers, 
sisters and wives, sweethearts, friends, and relations of all 
these brave hoys look to me for their weal or woe. If I make 
a mistake by which human life is needlessly sacrificed, how 



i8o Thomas Kilby Smith 

terrible is the penalty ! For this reason I am cautious. 
. . . I won't say I fear, for I hate the word ; I don't fear 
anything, man or devil, but I don't choose to be in advance 
of myself — my hour has not yet come. I won't ask praise 
until I have earned it. I am very glad my friends have sent 
me this sword. It is more gratifying to my feelings than I 
can express to you, and I wish you would take occasion to 
write to each one of them, a list of the names of whom I will 
give you, your own personal recognition of the claim they 
have to your gratitude for the kindness and honor they have 
done your son. 

You say you fear I am passing a gloomy winter in camp. 
I wish you could see me at this moment and the interior of 
the hut I live in. It is to me a paradise of delight. Do you 
recollect the old kitchen at the farm, and the saddles and 
bridles, bits and spurs that garnished the walls. View me now 
only more so ; pistols and swords, bridles and belts, caps and 
gauntlets, foils and uniforms, a rough pine cupboard with a 
bottle of whiskey and a jug of water, pipes, a table covered 
with a blanket, and that thoroughly littered, letters an- 
swered and unanswered, mostly the latter ; Hardee & Scott, 
the Army Regulations, and the Lord knows what. Buffalo 
robes to sleep on, and horse rugs, red, gray, and blue 
blankets for cover ; lie down when I please, get up when I 
please, breakfast from eight till eleven, dinner from twelve 
to four, for no heed do I pay to special orders in the eating 
line. I make the men eat to the tap of the drum, but I eat 
when I please. No woman to bother me, save the country 
maidens who come to camp to see the soldiers, and they not 
much. Nary baby to keep awake o' nights. The fact is, 
camp life to a field-ofi&cer is a bachelor's paradise. 

On board Steamer Fannie McBurnie, 

Near Louisvtlle, Feb. i8, 1862. 
My Dear Wifk : 

I was very much disappointed yesterday at being prevented 
from bidding you and the dear little ones " good-bye." My 
heart is quite full now, and I hardly dare trust myself to 




COLONEL THOMAS KILBY SMITH, 

CAMP DENNISON, 1862. 



Letters 



ibi 



write. My command was ordered by telegraphic despatch. 
I got the regiment in the cars promptly and in good order, 
was the last man to embark, and from my anxiety to see 
that none was left, was left myself. This threw me back 
one hour and a half. At Cincinnati I was compelled to take 
command of two steamboats, two being required for the 
transportation of the regiment. We were compelled in order 
to preserve discipline to tie one of them to the Kentucky 
shore, and I was all the afternoon crossing the river in a 
skiff or yawl between the two boats. I did not dare at any 
time to leave the command long enough to come to you. 
You must keep up a brave heart, dear wife, I shall soon 
come back. Meanwhile, I am sure I have some friends in 
Cincinnati who will care for you. 

I am writing now in a hurry, surrounded by a legion of 
oflScers and soldiers. I will write more at length from Padu- 
cah. I am seizing now the services of a pilot going ashore. 
My troops are all in good health and spirits. My own 
health is good. God bless and preserve you. 

Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. U. S. A,, 

Camp near Paducah, Ky., February 21, 1862. 

I arrived safely with my regiment yesterday morning, and 
am now encamped at a point about a mile and a half west 
of Paducah. Our voyage down the river was made safely 
and without accident. I think it a little doubtful whether 
you received my hurried letter written during the voyage, 
and therefore am disposed to recapitulate, even at the risk 
of giving you stale news, the circumstances of our departure 
from Camp Dennison. As I told you in one of our conversa- 
tions I have considered marching orders as being near at 
hand for some weeks, and so endeavored to arrange my regi- 
mental matters that I should not be taken unawares, but I 
hardly expected them to come as they did, by telegraph, and 
on Sunday. I was very strongly tempted to pass that Sun- 
day with you. Camp had become intensely disagreeable, the 
weather was cold, inclement, and the ground in a horrible 



1 82 Thomas Kilby Smith 

condition, and I thought how very comfortable it would be 
to take a good Sunday dinner with you and have a nap 
afterwards on the lounge upstairs, enveloped in my new 
dressing gown, you were so good as to toil over for me, but 
again I thought if any accident were to occur to the regi- 
ment if I were away, that I would never forgive myself or be 
forgiven by my superior officers, and that at the present time 
I owed my whole time, at whatever sacrifice, to my country ; 
therefore I resisted all the temptations and blandishments 
of home, and well it was that I did so. Oh ! how bitterly 
have some of my officers and even privates regretted that 
they absented themselves, and at what terrible cost will they 
be to get to their regiment. I had gone through the duties 
of the day, which for Sunday in camp, or rather garrison, 
consists of an inspection of the barracks and soldiers with 
their arms and accoutrements, and was finishing my tour of 
the hospital when up rode an adjutant, his horse in a foam, 
and hurriedly handing me a paper, asked me when I could 
be ready to march. I looked at my watch, coolly took his 
paper, which was a telegraphic despatch or order, and re- 
plied: " In fifteen minutes." He looked at me incredu- 
lously and was about to ride off. I called to him, ' ' Stop, 
Sir, I will show you my troops in marching order within 
fifteen minutes, and leave it to you to report the fact." 
Within ten minutes from that time my soldiers were in line 
with blankets rolled and knapsacks packed, ready to march 
a thousand miles. The Adjutant, an old English soldier, 
by the bye, who was in the Crimean war and has been to 
India with troops, looked on in astonishment. But cars 
could not be put upon the railroad before nine o'clock the 
next morning, and all night I kept the men up cooking 
rations for three days. I sat up all night myself, and, of 
course, was about bright and early in the morning. My 
boys were all eager for the start. I had but one craven 
hound who deserted me, and he, I am sorry to say, was 
from . . . His name was . . . and he must be 
published to the world as a coward and a perjured liar. At 
nine o'clock as I sat on horseback at the head of the column 
with my staff about me, an orderly rode over to say that the 



Letters 183 

cars would be ready by the time that I had marched to the 
depot. The cavalry regiment had sent their band and an es- 
cort, and with my own band we made fine music, and I flatter 
myself a gallant appearance. At the depot we were met by 
Colonel Burnett of the artillery with his band, and every offi- 
cer of distinction at camp was there to bid me farewell. They 
gave me a good send-off. Few troops have left Camp Den- 
nison under pleasanter auspices, and sooth to say I was 
loath to leave the old camp after all, for there I have spent 
some pleasant days " under the greenwood tree, and in 
winter and rough weather." I was so careful to get the 
troops on board and to see the last man on, that I got left 
myself and was somewhat thrown out of my calculations. 
However it ended well enough, for my farewell to you and 
the dear children would have been heartbreaking all round, 
and perhaps wholly unnerved me. As usual in moments 
of great excitement with me, I had lost my appetite, and did 
not want a great deal to set me back at a time when I re- 
quired all my faculties at hand. It is just as bad to march 
troops from home the first time they leave their homes as to 
march them in battle to the charge. One of my companies 
was from Cincinnati, and it was almost heartbreaking to see 
the leavetakings between mother and son, husband and wife, 
sister and brother. All classes were represented, and I was 
compelled to put a stop to the terrible scenes mingled with 
considerable drunkenness (for the soldiers had so many 
friends that their canteens were well filled and continually 
replenished with whiskey) by ordering the captain of the 
boat of which I took charge in person to run her over to the 
Kentucky shore. My whole time was taken up as a matter 
of course, and I tried in vain for an opportunity to come to 
you. We sailed down the river without adventure worth 
relating, save that our soldiers fought terribly among each 
other, at least those who were drunk, and we lost one man 
by drowning, and another whose skull was fractured acciden- 
tally by a shovel. I arrived at Paducah at about six o'clock 
on the evening of Wednesday the 19th inst. As soon as the 
boat landed and before my report was written, I was waited 
upon by General Sherman, who is the commandant of this 



1 84 Thomas Kilby Smith 

post, and by him shown, on board a steamer lying a little 
farther down stream from our boat, which was thoroughly 
stowed, rammed, packed, and crowded with prisoners from 
the enemy, captured at Fort Donaldson, together with five 
thousand stand of arms. The prisoners were of high and 
low degree. I was introduced to one or two colonels and 
several other ofiicers. The men, in my judgment, do not 
well compare with ours. I think we can always whip them 
about three to five. They fought magnificently, however, 
at Fort Donaldson, and lost probably on their side about 
three thousand killed and wounded. On our side there were 
thirteen hundred wounded and five hundred killed. We 
took thirteen thousand three hundred and thirty-six prison- 
ers — these figures are reliable. The hospitals here are 
perfect charnel houses. . . . 

When General Sherman had got through his business 
with me and had offered the hospitalities of his headquarters, 
I returned to the boats. The Fa7inie McBurnie, the one in 
which I sailed, arrived first, and while I was inspecting the 
prisoners and arms, the Ben Franklin, the boat that had my 
other detachments, arrived. I was engaged during the 
night in preparing for disembarkation and at seven o'clock 
the next morning had my troops, horses, tents, supplies all 
off; at eight o'clock marched to General Sherman's head- 
quarters, one of the finest regiments, as he told Colonel 
Stuart in my hearing, he had ever seen. The morning was 
fine and the boys looked splendidly. We are now, as I told 
you, encamped at a point about a mile and a half west of the 
city of Paducah, containing some ten thousand inhabitants. 
My troops are well bestowed in tents, and I have taken to 
myself a house of some twelve or fifteen rooms for my head- 
quarters. It was occupied, I believe, by a secessionist, and 
has fine grounds, stables, etc. , about it. I am very much more 
comfortable than at Camp Dennison. My regiment has the 
post of honor, and with a battery of artillery guard the en- 
campment. There are a great many troops here. I cannot 
say nearly how many, for I have not information. I should 
think twelve or fifteen thousand. General Halleck, under 
whose command my regiment is placed, is concentrating 



Letters 185 

vast forces here. He anticipates a forward movement. We 
are ordered to hold ourselves in readiness to march at a 
moment's notice. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf. U. S. A., 

March 2, 1862. 

As you are perhaps aware, I marched from Ohio without 
arms, having condemned those which were furnished us from 
the State, and am now waiting arms from the arsenal at St. 
Louis, which I expected upon my arrival ; these we still 
expect from day to day, and upon their reception will be put 
upon the march instantly. I do not know certainly, but 
have reason to believe our destination is the South — ^perhaps 
New Orleans, perhaps Texas. As soon as we move and as 
soon as I am properly advised of our destination, you shall 
be apprised. You must not permit yourself for one moment 
to be uneasy about me. Remember, as I have frequently 
told you, I have faced death in all its forms, and am yet un- 
scathed ; that the same watchful eye of Providence is upon 
me now, and will be upon me hereafter, that has scanned 
every good and every ill attending me from my cradle up. 
That if my life is worth preserving for any useful purpose, 
the God who gave will not take it back till its full course is 
run. I am at this moment writing in the midst of a violent 
thunderstorm which rocks and shakes the house I am sitting 
in. Nature is convulsed and the elemental war is raging 
round me. The petty warfare of man is as nothing com- 
pared to this. Our battles sink into insignificance. What 
is the rattling of musketry or the roar of cannon to the peal- 
ing reverberations from the thunder cloud ; or the glittering 
bayonet or whistling sword to the scathing bolt from heaven 
that consumes quicker than thought can flash through the 
brain of man ? Yet through this I sit calm and unconcerned, 
trusting as the child that nestles upon your lap. Why then 
should I fear what man can do ? Why should you be appre- 
hensive for me ? As I always write, keep up a brave heart, 
dear wife. I cannot ask you not to be anxious, for that 
would be to ask you to lay aside that love I so dearly cher- 



1 86 Thomas Kilby Smith 

ish. I know that anxiety and fear and anguish and weak- 
ness are inseparable from the sweet affection you bear for 
me, that all my philosophy will not cause your heart to abate 
one throb of its agony of apprehension. I only ask you to 
pray for strength, and strength will be given you. Do not 
permit your mind to dwell upon sorrows that may never 
come, but rather hope and rejoice in bright anticipations of 
a glowing future. Believe that I shall come back with 
bright honor, that at the worst if I fall, I shall leave to the 
dear children we both love so dearly the priceless heritage 
of a patriot's name. Sad hearts are mourning all over the 
desolated land. Tears are raining from scores of thousands 
of eyes this blessed Sunday. Brave hearts are swelling and 
yearning with affection for the loved ones at home through- 
out the ranks of five hundred thousand men. I strive to 
give you cheer. God help me, I am called upon to cheer 
almost a thousand who look to me for counsel. Again, pray 
for strength for yourself, and that strength may be given 
you to comfort others in affliction. 



Headquarteirs 54TH Regt, O. V. I. U. S. A., 

Encampment near Paducah, Ky., March 4, 1862. 

My dear Sister Helen : 

You must not any of you be alarmed for my personal 
safety. I am just as well cared for as if I was by your side 
in New York, the same good God is above me here as there. 
My health is excellent, I am only troubled for the loved 
ones at home. In one of your letters to I^izzie you speak of 
having heard of my regiment from Washington. I have 
never permitted it to be puffed through the newspapers, and 
have only wanted it to win its laurels honestly ; but I assure 
you that it is the finest and best drilled regiment that ever 
left Ohio, and has been complimented by General Sherman, 
the Commandant of the Post, as the best regiment in the 
division here, some fourteen thousand strong. My men have 
been carefully selected for the Zouave drill — for I suppose 
that you are aware that it is a Zouave regiment — have been 



Letters 187 

picked out for their youth and physical strength and activity, 
and I assure you in its ranks may be found some of the most 
splendid specimens of manly beauty. Their uniform is very 
handsome, though not as fantastic as the Zouaves you have 
seen about New York. They have dark-blue jackets, reach- 
ing to the hips, trimmed with red ; light blue trousers with 
red stripes down the sides, and white gaiters, reaching some 
three inches above the ankle. Gray felt hats, low-crowned, 
and looped at the side with bright red tassels ; some of them 
wear very fancy hats or caps, without vizor or brim, which 
with the streaming tassel makes them very picturesque. 
Their overcoats are bright indigo blue, with large capes. 
They are a splendid, brave, handsome set of fellows. My 
oflBcers are certainly very handsome men, all of them, and 
among them men of fine talent, almost all accomplished as 
amateurs in music, drawing, and all that sort of thing. 
Some of them are good poets. We often have Shakesperian 
readings. I send an impromptu got off the other night by 
one of the lieutenants. ... A society to which he be- 
longed in college was called the " Owl," and he was re- 
quested to deliver a poem. Upon the spur of the moment he 
wrote that which I enclose and offer as a fair sample of the 
talent under my command. 

My regiment is splendidly armed with the Vincennes rifle, 
and the troops are in fine spirits. Still there are troubles 
and trials and bitter vexations attendant upon a command 
which no one but he who has been through, can appreciate 
or estimate. Immense responsibility, gross ingratitude, no 
thanks for almost superhuman efforts, and the constant neces- 
sity for coolness, patience, forbearance, and the cultivation of 
a skin as thick as that of a rhinoceros. . . . 

You will expect me to write you some war news ; that I 
cannot do, for it is prohibited. I can tell you that I sent a 
detachment from my regiment to co-operate with a detach- 
ment from another command to occupy Columbus ; and I 
can tell you that one of my lieutenants who was detailed on 
secret service has just returned from Forts Henry and Don- 
aldson. He corroborates the published accounts of the fight 
at Donaldson, which was brilliant. Our troops fought under 



1 88 Thomas Kilby Smith 

a most terrific hail of shot and shell ; some five thousand on 
both sides were killed and wounded. You learn all these 
things through the newspapers, however, which relate them 
much better than I can. 

The weather at this point is very changeable. We have 
had some lovely spring-like days, but to-day is bitterly cold, 
and yesterday we had snow and rain. March is a disagree- 
able month, I believe everywhere. It has always been dis- 
agreeable to me, wherever I have been. 

Paducah was, before it became the seat of war, a beautiful 
town of some ten thousand inhabitants, among whom was a 
vast deal of wealth, exhibited in their fine mansions and 
sumptuous furniture. Very many of the private dwellings, 
luxurious in their appointments, the Court House, and 
other public buildings, have been taken for the use of the 
army. Elegant shade trees have been or are being cut 
down for fuel ; gardens and lawns laid waste ; beautiful 
palings torn down, and devastation made the order of the 
day. Most of the inhabitants who have been able to do so 
have gone away. The character of the people is decidedly 
" Secesh." The town is, of course, under martial law, civil 
courts for the present aboHshed, and no citizen can come or 
go without a pass from the Provost Marshal. A company is 
detailed from my regiment each day, whose duty it is, in 
connection with other forces, to guard all the points and 
lines of ingress and egress to and from the town, with orders 
to guard and search suspicious persons. All this gives one 
a full realization of war, which you in the Eastern cities 
have not yet had brought home to you, and which I trust 
you may never see. 

Headquarters 54TH regiment O. V. U. S. A., 

Encamped near Paducah, Ky., March 7, 1862. 

My dear Wife : 

We are under marching orders, and should have left for 
Savannah, up the Tennessee River, yesterday. If you look 
on the map, you will discover the point near the straight 
line between Tennessee and Alabama. The transport 



Letters 1 89 

steamers did not arrive, as we expected, yesterday, and we 
shall embark to-day. My troops are well armed and well 
equipped and in good spirits. My own health is excellent. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. U. S. A., 
On board Steamer Prairie Rose, 

Near Savannah, Tennessee, March 13, 1862. 

Within a few hours we shall probably be in battle. The 
last task I have to perform is to write to you and our dear 
mother. I have but little to say now that I have not ex- 
pressed in former letters or in my conversations with you. 
I shall hope when this conflict is over to return to you ; if 
by any untoward accident I should be unable to, I have 
only to ask of you to comfort mother in her declining years. 
An accident to me may prove to her a greater shock than 
she can bear. Of her I shall ask to comfort you who will 
need comfort and consolation. To our dear little children I 
have little to give save love and prayers. Keep their 
memory with love constantly alive for their father. The 
world will not speak well of him, for he has found in it 
more enemies than friends, and his pathway has not been 
smooth. The annoyances of life have prevented him from 
winning all their love. He has been harsh where he should 
have been kind. This they cannot now understand, but in 
after years they may. M}^ only anxiety is to leave for them 
a name they may be proud of. The little valuables at Mr. 
Burt's, the banker's, are subject to your order ; distribute 
them as you and mother think fit. My sword give to 
Walter; if Theodore survives him, let him have it. If both 
pass away, then Adrian. It is the only heirloom I care to 
preserve to the family. It will be to my boys, if they live, 
a memento of my life and the times in which we live. So 
much for business — and I pray you do not suppose that I 
entertain anything but bright anticipations of a glowing 
future. My heart is buoyant. My only anxiety is for my 
regiment, and that it may be taken into battle in due form 
and with a strict adherence to military rule. I may be mis- 
taken, but my present impression is that the battle we are 



1 90 Thomas Kilby Smith 

about to fight will be the test and turning-point ot this war. 
If we succeed, negotiations will follow ; if not, neither you 
nor I will see the end of this unhappy controversy. I think 
mine is a fighting regiment. I may be deceived or place my 
hopes too high. I pray to God I may not disgrace the regi- 
ment with me. I shall do my best, and leave the rest with 
the God of Battles. 



Headquarters 54TH Regiment O. V. U. S. A., 

2D Brigade, ist Div., Tennessee Expedition, 
Encamped near Pittsburgh, Tenn., March 21, 1862. 

You will have been made very anxious about me by the 
one or two letters I regretted writing immediately after they 
were sent ; but we had every hope of an engagement with 
the enemy, every reason to expect it would come off within 
a few hours, and in the excitement of the moment I deemed 
it my duty to write you just then. But the enemy retires as 
we advance, and up to this time refuse to give us a battle. 
Since writing last we have encamped and marched in Ala- 
bama and Mississippi, and are now encamped within a few 
miles of Pittsburgh, a point on the Tennessee River, above 
Savannah. Our camp is high, and I hope will prove 
healthy. The First Division, under General Sherman, has 
the advance, and the Second Brigade has the advance of the 
Divison. I am second in command in the brigade, and 
therefore next to the first regiment in the whole army. 
The army will doubtless be from one hundred thousand to 
one hundred and fifty thousand strong, so that I have great 
reason to be satisfied. I have reason to believe that the 54th 
is well thought of. 

The service of my regiment has been very active, though 
we have had no general engagement, marching, changing 
camp often, with scout and picket duty, has kept them con- 
stantly on the ' ' qui vive. ' ' I find the life of a soldier full 
of excitement, and to me perfectly fascinating. My mind 
and body are constantly at work. I hope good will result to 
the country from the efforts we are now making, but every 



Letters 1 9 1 

one here is opposed to us. The people almost without ex- 
ception are " secesh." I have taken a great many prisoners, 
some of them men of wealth, who do not hesitate to declare 
their traitorous feelings. An army of occupation will give 
us the control of trade, however, and restore to the North- 
west the commerce of the Mississippi. 

HEADQUARTERS OF 54TH REGT. O. V. U. S. A., 

Camp Shii^oh, Tennessee, March 31, 1862. 

We have not yet had the good fortune to meet the enemy. 
I have made, in connection with Generals Sherman and 
Stuart, various reconnoitres, and day before yesterday we 
were just on the heels of a body of cavalry, but they managed 
to elude our forces. As I mentioned to you in a former 
letter, there is a large army concentrating at this point, 
where, I suppose, will be congregated a force of an hundred 
and forty thousand. The enemy are in force at Corinth, 
some seventeen miles distant. Our men are fast becoming 
acclimated, and are becoming restored to their wonted 
health and vigor. As I said before, my own health is most 
excellent, and I am really insensible to fatigue, at least on 
horseback. It is no unusual thing for me to be eight or ten 
hours on the stretch in the saddle. If the spring and sum- 
mer heats do not overcome me, I am sure I shall derive 
benefit from the campaign. I desire continually to assure 
you of my safety, and to pray you to disabuse your mind of 
apprehension of danger to me either from ill-health or the 
casualties of an engagement, the latter are of the most trivial 
character ; there is not one chance in a thousand of my 
being scathed. 

Headquarters 54TH Regiment O. V. Ine, , 

1ST Division oe the Expedition of The Tennessee, 

Encamped near Pittsburg, Tenn. 

My di;ar Mother : 

I am as safe here as I should be in New York or in Cin- 
cinnati ; the same kind Providence is over me. My com- 



192 Thomas Kilby Smith 

mand has been much harassed with marching and counter- 
marching and rapid movements from place to place, coupled 
with confinement on steamboat, which has tended to pro- 
duce sickness ; but my own health is good. As evidence of 
this fact, I may say that yesterday the division under Gen- 
eral Sherman, of which our brigade forms a part, made a very 
extended reconnoissance, driving in the enemy's pickets ; 
that I was compelled to rise at four o'clock in the morning, 
and, mounting at five, rode at the head of my regiment for 
fourteen hours without dismounting save to change horses ; 
that I did not lie down till after twelve o'clock, and that I 
rose this morning at five, and now at nine do not feel any 
ill effects. This has been the longest and most hurried 
march we have yet made. 

We shall have a very large army here, as will probably 
the rebels, who will concentrate their forces at Corinth, a 
point on the railroad some seventeen miles off. The army 
here is now under the general command of Gen. Charles F. 
Smith, whom you may recollect in Washington ; either his 
wife or daughter, I suppose his wife, was somewhat cele- 
brated in social circles as Mrs. Fanny Smith. Ada, I sup- 
pose, will recollect her. He is very distinguished here as a 
soldier, and was the hero of Fort Donaldson. The immediate 
division, of which my command forms a part, is under Gen- 
eral Sherman, and I am brigaded under the command of 
Colonel Stuart, who ranks me, but I am second in command 
to him. He is David Stuart of Michigan, who represented 
the Detroit District in Congress during the Pierce Adminis- 
tration. The commander-in-chief of the department is 
General Halleck. I^etters will reach me directed to the 
54th Regt. O. V. Inf , Second Brigade, First Division of the 
Expedition to Tennessee, via Cairo or Paducah, Ky. 

We are in the midst of the cotton -growing region, but the 
upland is sterile, and the climate apparent!}^ the same as in 
Cincinnati. The people are a strange compound of extreme 
ignorance with very considerable refinement of manner and 
conversation. They are all, without any exception I have 
yet found, ' ' secesh, ' ' and look upon the ' ' Yanks, ' ' as they 



Letters 193 

call all people from the North, with not only aversion, but a 
" holy horror." I feel almost convinced that we are a dis- 
tinct people, that re-union is well-nigh impossible. 

Headquarters 54TH Regiment O. V. Inf., 

CampShiloh, Tennessee, April 11, 1862. 

My dkar Wife : 

You will have learned by the papers long before this letter 
reaches you that we have had a splendid engagement, or, I 
should say, a series of engagements running through three 
days. This is the first time I have an opportunity of writing 
you to apprise you of my safety, though I have asked some 
two or three others to do so. I have thus far passed through 
unscathed, save a slight wound in the arm. My regiment, 
however, has been badly cut up. My boys fought gallantly, 
and have shown a dauntless heroism in the fortitude they 
have displayed, in the endurance of fatigue and hardship 
they have been subjected to since. 

Poor young De Charmes was shot through the lungs early 
in the action of the first day. Placing his hand upon his 
wound he said, ' ' Tell my friends I die happy in the service 
of my country, ' ' the only words he spoke. Captain Rogall, ' 
the accomplished gentleman I have spoken to you of so often, 
was mortally wounded. De Charmes was a nephew of Mr. 
Geo. Graham, who may enquire of you concerning him. 
His remains were found and buried, but his person had been 
rifled of his watch, money, and everything valuable. One 
of my horses was shot three times, and struck in the neck by 
a piece of shell, but my noble " Bellfounder, " thank God, is 
safe ; he carried me two days and nights, and never flinched 
from shot or shell. He is the most gallant horse I ever saw. 
Fatigue, starvation, exposure, nothing daunts his mettle. 

Ben Runkle, I am told, who was with one of the regiments 
that came up with the reserve, was shot through the mouth. 
A bad wound, I am told. I went into battle with less than 
four hundred. My regiment had been cut up by sickness 
and fatigue duty. The reports, as near as I can get them at 
' This officer, though shot through the body, recovered. 



194 Thomas Kilby Smith 

this time, show two hundred killed, wounded, and missing. 
After eleven o'clock on the morning of Sunday, the battle 
began. Colonel Stuart was wounded, and had to retire. 
The command of the brigade devolved upon me as next 
senior oflficer, and I carried the brigade through till three 
o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, when, by order of Gen- 
eral Sherman, I added another brigade to it, and had com- 
mand of both until the close of the battle. 

I thank God who has graciously spared my life. I a.sk 
that all my family give Him thanks. My health is good. 
Write to my dear mother and send her this letter. This is 
the only sheet of paper I can borrow, and it is hard to write. 
My best love to all my dear children and to you. 



Headquarters 54XH Regiment O. V. U. S. A., 

Camp Shiloh, Tennessee, April 12, 1862. 

I have an opportunity of writing at private hand, which I 
must not let slip although I wrote you yesterday. My 
health never was better, and I am in good spirits, hoping 
for another engagement, which I trust will be the last. 
. . . The next time our boys will be exactly in fighting 
trim. You must not permit yourself to be worried about me. 
God will take the same good care of me in the future as He 
has done in the past. The God of Battles (to whom I am 
grateful with all my heart, for He alone has saved me) will 
still stretch forth His protecting arm, unless it is His Will 
that I should go, and if it is His Will, I trust I shall be ready. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp Shii,oh, Tenn., April 17, 1862. 

Captain ' is still safe, and I think if he gets through this 
war, he will be sufficiently broken for the children to ride. 
Though his mettle is as good as the best war horse of them 
all. 

' A bay horse of much beauty. 



Letters 195 

Headquarters 54TH Regiment O. V. I,, 

Camp Shiloh, Tennessee, April 14, 1862. 

My dear Sister : 

Well, my dear Helen, the great fight has been fought ; I 
have had my part in it, and, save a slight scratch not worth 
mentioning, have come out safe. The papers, of course, 
teem with accounts, which you have doubtless read until 
you are satisfied ; but, at the risk of stale news, I will give 
you my experience of the battle, of which I believe I saw as 
much as " any other man." 

On the Thursday preceding, my command had been 
ordered upon a most fatiguing night march, which lay for 
six miles through a dense swamp to a point near a ford, 
where we lay for some hours in ambuscade for the purpose 
of taking a body of rebel cavalry. On Friday we marched 
back to camp. On Saturday, nearly the whole regiment 
was turned out on fatigue duty to build some bridges and a 
road to cross artiller}', and on Saturday night I was ordered 
to hold my command in readiness for an expedition to march 
as early as eight o'clock on Sunday. All this service was 
intensely fatiguing to the ofiicers and harassing to the men, 
but to the last order I probably owe my life, for, having 
been prompt in its execution and my horse being saddled, 
no sooner had the long roll sounded, than my men were in 
line. The attack was very sudden, and within three minutes 
our tents were literally riddled with the balls of the enemy's 
skirmishers. We marched the battalion to a kind of penin- 
sula formed by a dense ravine on the one side and a creek on 
the other, and there formed the line of battle. 

From the fatigue duty I have spoken of, and certain camp 
epidemics prevalent, our forces had been very much weak- 
ened, and we took into the field but about fifteen hundred 
men. To this force were opposed eight thousand of the 
enemy's infantry, supported by artillery and cavalry. Now, 
to the better understanding of my account, you must recol- 
lect what I have before written you, that the Second Brigade 
of Sherman's Division occupied the extreme left wing of the 
army, whose front lines extended many miles ; that my regi- 
ment occupied the extreme left of the brigade, and observe 



196 Thomas Kilby Smith 

that the enemy having surprised the centre which was broken, 
and having routed and captured the greater part of Prentiss' 
command, to whom we looked for support, stole down our 
front and attempted to outflank us, and now at about nine 
o'clock on Sunday morning we joined battle. Having seen 
by my glass the vastly superior force of the enemy, I deter- 
mined to sell our lives as dearly as possible, but never to 
surrender, and ordered my Zouaves to lie on their bellies, 
and, waiting the attack, not to fire until the foe was within 
twenty yards. We were ranged along the brow of the hill, 
slightly covered with a small growth of timber, and between 
us and the advancing ranks was an open plain. On they 
came, steadily, and save the tread of the well-trained sol- 
diers, led by General Hardee in person, not a sound was 
heard ; at last they were upon us, and then commenced the 
deafening roar of volley after volley ; for four hours and a 
half the deadly hand-to-hand conflict raged. (I took 390 
enlisted men into battle, I left 187 upon the field, killed or 
badly wounded, but from me they took no prisoners. The 
71st Ohio . . . abandoned us early in the action, but 
the 55th Illinois were staunch. The brigade lost 587 killed 
and wounded, but most of these are from the 54th Ohio and 
55th Illinois). At last our ammunition began to fail, and I 
never shall forget the despairing looks of some of the boys, 
who would come clustering around my horse and say, 
' ' Colonel, what shall I do ; my cartridges are all out ? ' ' 
But, fortunately, the enemy's fire began to slack. My men 
all fired low, every man made his mark, and though our 
own men could hardly get round among their own killed and 
wounded, the field was strewn thick with the dead of the 
foe. By this time I was in command of the brigade. Colonel 
Stuart having been wounded and compelled to retire. I fell 
back in good order for better position and until I could be 
reinforced with ammunition ; my forty rounds were all gone. 
At last an orderly from General Grant came up to promise 
the required supply and to order us to a position at which 
we could cover a battery. I forgot to tell you that the 
enemy had planted a battery upon a height, commanding 
our first position, and were shelling us all the while the first 



Letters 



197 



fight was going on. One of my horses was struck once by 
a piece of shell and twice by rifle balls. No sooner had we 
taken position by the batteries than the attack was renewed 
with greater vigor than ever ; but now the heavy guns from 
the gunboats in our rear began to throw their shells clean 
over us and into the ranks of the enemy ; never was sweeter 
music to my ears than their thunder ; the shades of night 
drew on, the enemy began to slacken fire, and, as shell after 
shell dropped and burst in their midst, gradually retired. 
Our men dropped exhausted on their arms ; all day the 
battle had raged, all day they had suffered privation of food 
and drink, and now began to fall a copious shower of rain, 
which lasted steadily till morning ; through that shower 
without a murmur they slept, and the next morning at seven 
o'clock I, having been formally placed in command of the 
brigade by order of General Sherman, began the march 
towards the right wing, where we were to take position. 
General Nelson, who with General Buell had brought up re- 
inforcements during the night, had commenced manoeuvres 
at daybreak. As early as eight o'clock my brigade was in 
the line of battle and under a heavy fire of shell. At about 
nine o'clock we were ordered into action, which was hotly 
contested all the day long. About four o'clock I was 
ordered to the command of another brigade, or, more prop- 
erly, a concentration of skeleton regiments, which I had got 
into line, and, leaving my own command with lyieutenant- 
Colonel Malmborg, carried my new command far into an 
advanced position, then returning, brought up my own 
brigade upon the left of Shiloh Chapel. Now the Pelican 
flag began to waver and droop. All the day long we, that 
is, my immediate command, were opposed to the " Crescent 
City Guards," the pet regiment of Beauregard, to whom in 
the morning he had made his whole army present arms, and 
whose flag he had at the same time planted, saying of us, 
the Northern army, " Thus far, but no farther shalt thou 
go " ; vain boast ; at even tide, like a gull upon the crest 
of the wave in the far-off ocean, it fluttered and went down. 
I drew my forces up in good order under the eye of Gen- 
eral Sherman, and Monday night again under a most drench- 



198 Thomas Kilby Smith 

ing shower, which lasted all the night through, the men 
even now without food or drink lay upon their arms, and on 
Tuesday morning were again in line ; the enemy had gone, 
but not their occupation ; all day they stood guard upon the 
outposts, and the next day we marched the whole regiment 
onward for three miles and a half to bring in the wounded 
of the enemy. That day I took thirty-two prisoners, and 
brought in the bodies of an Arkansas colonel and Major 
Monroe, of Kentucky, the latter one of the most distinguished 
men of the State, and both of them I had decently interred. 
Oh, Helen, if you had seen the horrors of that battle, 
as I saw them when the rage of battle had passed, the 
heaps of slain, the ghastly wounds, had you heard the 
groans of the dying, had you seen the contortions of men 
and horses ; but why dwell on the theme which abler wri- 
ters will so vividly portray? I have given you one hasty 
sketch of the humble part it was my good fortune to be able 
to play in one of the greatest dramas of the age. Thank 
God for me, for in His infinite mercy He alone has preserved 
me in the shock of battle; pray for me always. One more 
conflict, and I leave a memory for my children or make a 
name for myself. My flag is still unstained, my honor still 
bright. 

HEADQUARTIIRS 54TH REGT. O. V. InF. U. S. A., 

Encamped on the Battlefiei,d of Shii^oh, 

April 27, 1862. 

" Backward, turn backward, oh time, — in your flight, 

Make me a child again just for to-night. 
Mother, come back from the echoless shore, 

Take me again to your heart as of yore ; 
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, 

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair. 
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep, 

Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep." 

If there can be, dear mother, a perfect realization of all the 
dreams of romance in which my youthful fancy ever indulged, 
that realization is now mine. Imagine me as I lie in my 
tent, pitched upon a hard-fought battlefield, my tried sword 



Letters 1 99 

and trusty pistols at my head, I look through the fly at 
three as gallant horses as ever snified the breeze, picketed 
close at hand ; just beyond them the encampment of my 
regiment, a band of devoted followers, all of whom, if actions 
speak fairly, worship me, every one of whom has been ready 
to rush to death at my bidding, whose ranks have been fear- 
fully thinned, but still contain as true hearts and strong 
arms as ever did or dared on battlefield. My flag that 
fluttered while thousands of bullets were aimed at it, that 
came from the conflict unstained with dishonor, still ripples 
in the balmy air of this lovely day. I have a great deal to 
make me exultant, but oh, if I could only roll back the tide 
of time for one moment, if I could only be a little child again 
with your hand upon my brow, if you could only take me 
again to your heart as of yore, how gladly would I exchange 
all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war ! 

We shall have another great fight, though the delay has 
been disastrous to us. We ought to have followed up the 
flying foe on Monday night. We had them then beyond all 
doubt. They have been heavily reinforced since, and are 
very stubborn. At the rate we are going on, this war will 
last twenty-five years, and will cost the North the lives of 
a million of men. 



HEADQUARTERS 54TH REGIMENT O. V. INF., 

Camp Pea Ridge, Tenn., May i, 1862. 



Very great injustice has been done Ohio troops. They 
have always spoken well of my regiment, however, even the 
Chicago and other Illinois papers. There were so many 
heroes on the field that it was difiicult to select any one par 
excellence. My regiment suffered more in killed and 
wounded than any other in the army. I lost more than 
half rank and file of all I took into battle. The battlefield 
of Shiloh is drenched with the best blood of the regiment. 
My command was very gallant, and I am proud of it, or 
rather what is left of it, for it has dwindled to the merest 



200 Thomas Kilby Smith 

handful. It is spoken of in the official dispatches, which 
will be published some time hereafter. We marched to this 
point yesterday and the day before. We are now but a short 
distance, less than half a day's march from Corinth, and hope 
to join battle in a few days. I think your son will be heard 
of in that battle, though Smith is a hard name to contend 
with. You would be amused at the vicissitudes I have had 
to contend with from my most unfortunate cognomen. The 
fellow who pretended to be able to lift the world if he could 
find a lever long enough, would have stared aghast at a 
proposition to lift the name of ' ' Smith ' ' out of the slough 
of obscurity with a lever double the length of that he re- 
quired to lift the earth. 

Soldiering is a pretty hard life, take it one day with 
another. You don't get anything good to eat or to drink, 
and you learn to go without sleep, and you are always going 
somewhere, or on the eve of doing something, and you are 
never clean and comfortable, and always cross ; but, as a 
whole, I believe I had rather rough it and fight a battle 
every other day than go back to the terrible servitude which 
has been my lot for the past twelve years. My health has 
been very good till the past two or three weeks. We camped 
on the battlefield, which was a vast charnel-house. The 
night of Monday of the battle, I slept on the ground in the 
rain, and when I awoke in the morning found I had gone to 
bed between two rebel corpses, one on each side of me, and 
that I had tied my horse so close to a third that he could not 
lie down without lying on it. If such things are horrible, 
this battlefield is too horrible to be described, as was the 
burial, or attempted burial, of the dead ; but it is astonish- 
ing to note how soon one gets used to these things, perfectly 
seared or hardened to suffering in every shape, the mutilated 
stump, the ghastly mortal wound. One bagged rebels as if 
they were partridges. I think my regiment killed more 
than a thousand of them. I was going to say that the smell 
of the battlefield for two or three days afterwards was ter- 
rible beyond description, that we were camped upon it, and 
had to live in it for twenty-two days, and that it produced a 
kind of dysenteric diarrhoea that afflicted me, and with which 



Letters 



20I 



I was a great deal prostrated. I have now regained my 
wonted vigor, and, notwithstanding your predictions to the 
contrary, believe I go through about as much as any one 
else. After the next battle, if we have time and get through 
safely, I will try and write you a more detailed account of 
my past life here, but just now I cannot write. 



Headquarters 54TH Regiment O. V. Ine., 

Camp Pea Ridge, Tenn., May 2, 1862. 

My dear Wife : 

To-day is the anniversary of our marriage. Can you 
realize so many years are buried with the dead past ? Years 
I fear of more pain than pleasure to you. How eventful 
they have been ! 

We have marched forward still further toward Corinth. 
I expect an engagement shortly. 



Headquarters 54TH Regiment O. V. Ine., 

Camp No. 5 in the Fiei,d, May 8, 1862. 

I notice the printers make terrible havoc with my name. 
They call me Kelly, and Kirby, and F. Kirby, and the 
Lord only knows what else, but I can generally be identified 
as the Smith who led the Second Brigade on Monday, and 
that directly under Sherman's eye, and in conjunction with 
the celebrated Rousseau Brigade. A good many of the local 
papers up through the country have complimented both the 
regiment and myself. These, of course, you do not see, but 
I would advise you to take all of the Cincinnati papers for a 
while, and look out for official reports of both Sherman and 
General Stuart. I have not written full details of the battle 
to you for two reasons. One that I had very little time and 
one that I thought you would get fuller details through the 
newspapers. The battle is getting somewhat stale now any- 
how. The next one I will try harder. 



202 ThoTfias Kilby Smith 

While I write there is an incessant roar of artillery, heavy 
siege guns. We made a sortie this morning and had a brush 
with the enemy's pickets. My Zouaves killed three of them, 
wounded five, and brought in four prisoners. Our brigade, 
the Second of the Fifth Division, consisting now of only 
Colonel Stuart's regiment and mine, is clear in the advance 
of the whole army and the nearest to Corinth. We heard 
for two nights the whistle of the cars very plainly. Cannon 
are playing all the time, and I think a great battle not far 
off. General Sherman has been made a Major-General, a 
promotion he well deserves. You must not believe all the 
newspapers say of him ; he is a splendid officer and a most 
excellent, good man. I have every confidence in him. I sat 
by his side on horseback for an hour on Monday of that terri- 
ble battle while shot and shell, cannon, cannister, and Minie- 
balls rained and rattled all about us. Scores of horses and 
men killed, and falling so close that the dead and dying 
piled all up about our horses, his cheek never blanched. 
He never for a moment lost his coolness. His hand was 
badly wounded by a piece of shell. He quietly went on 
giving his orders as if nothing had happened. A few 
minutes before I joined him he had three horses killed under 
him. A braver man I never saw, and I saw him in the 
thickest of it. If you note the official returns, you will dis- 
cover that the Sherman Division lost a great manj^ more in 
killed and wounded than either of the other divisions. I 
had intended to write mother, but have just received orders 
to get my regiment in marching trim. We go forward, and 
this time, I think, no halt till we storm the batteries of 
Corinth. You must make the latter part of this letter do for 
her. I think of her always, in the still camp at nightfall, 
on the march, or in the din of conflict her image is always 
in my heart. I have written very often to her, it is strange 
she does not receive my letters. She asks for details of my 
regiment, these she must get from the newspapers. Even 
they, or those who have written for them, admit my men 
fought most gallantly. I took three hundred and ninety 
into the field, of these one hundred and ninety fell killed or 
wounded. Ask her to search the papers for detailed report 



Letters 203 

of General Sherman, and Colonel Stuart, which ought to ac- 
company it. Part of this has been published in the New 
York Herald. The Illinois papers publish accounts of the 
54th. You know, but must write mother, for she, I suppose, 
has not heard it, that the regiment stood on Sunday under a 
murderous fire for four hours and a half; that the 55th 
Illinois and the 54th Ohio with about eight hundred and 
fifty men were attacked by an entire division, admitted by 
intelligent prisoners, surgeons, and others to contain nearly 
ten thousand, with cavalry and artillery, led by some of 
their best generals ; Hardee among the number ; that we 
stood till our ammunition was all exhausted, and then fell 
back in good order for more ; that while standing, we 
piled the ground with the enemy's dead ; that we made 
two of their regiments break and run, who in running were 
received on the bayonets of their own men, who forced them 
back. On Wednesday one thousand five hundred of their 
dead were buried in one little ravine where they fell. Tow- 
ards the last and when ammunition got scarce, my Zouaves 
never fired a shot without drawing a cool bead ; and no shot 
was fired, for we were within less than one hundred yards 
of them, that a rebel did not bite the dust. "We fell back, 
were reinforced with ammunition, formed a line, and in 
the rear of the batteries fought till dark. We lay on our 
arms in the rain and rose to fight all day Monday, and 
on Monday evening we were in the advance of the army, 
and the last to stop under orders in pursuit of the fleeing 
foe. We lay on our arms Monday night, and were in the 
line of battle again on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we 
marched forth to bring in thirty-two prisoners. 



Individual acts of heroism were performed by men and 
oflScers of my regiment that have never been excelled in 
song or story. There is none to tell the tale for them, and 
they are too modest to puff themselves. You will not find 
details, but you will find the main facts in the reports I have 
spoken of, and these you must hunt up and read. I am 
considered by my superior officers to have done my duty, 



204 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and \ have their confidence. God has been good in preserv- 
ing my life. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 
Camp No. 6 in the Fiei.d, 

Mississippi, May 15, 1862. 



We are still advancing, counter-skirmishing, and the din of 
cannonading is by day and night. We are close to Corinth. 
A great and decisive battle must soon be fought. We have 
been brigaded a second time. My regiment is now under 
command of Brigadier-General Morgan L. Smith, and con- 
sists of four regiments, the 55th Illinois, Colonel Stuart ; the 
57th Ohio, under Lieutenant- Colonel Rice, the Colonel being 
absent on sick leave ; the 8th Missouri, and the 54th Ohio. 
I still preserve my position on the left flank, which gives me 
my position on the extreme left of the brigade, and as we 
march by the left flank, the advance of the army, which is a 
post of honor. The integrity and courage of my command 
is undoubted, and therefore the responsible trust. My ad- 
dress will now be 54th Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, First 
Brigade, Fifth Division, Major-General Sherman command- 
ing. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Ine., 

Camp No. 7 before Corinth, May 19, 1862. 

Yesterday we were in a sharp engagement. Had thirteen 
men killed and thirty-five wounded. We were victorious, 
and drew the enemy from position. My troops are now in 
battle array, waiting orders. We hear General Pope is hotly 
engaged on the left wing. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp No. 7 before Corinth, May 21, 1862. 

I am still safe through constant skirmishing. The great 
battle has not come off", but the premonitions peal upon the 



Letters 205 

ear every minute. Both armies are stubborn and brave. 
We shall see and take part in the greatest battle of the age, 
unless the enemy evacuate Corinth, which I do not expect. 
Don't let apprehension for this battle give you pain or fear 
for my safety. Scores of bullets have whistled close to my 
ear since I wrote you three days ago, and I am still un- 
harmed. I have been in the din of conflict and thick of the 
fight by day and I may almost say by night. The roar of 
cannon and rattling of musketry are constantly in my ear, 
but I have been preserved, and the same good God will con- 
tinue to uphold me. 

I rather think this day Stephen has deserted me. He is 
tired of war, and latterly has become very useless. I attach 
but little blame to those who having the power leave this 
field — unless stimulated by patriotism or hope of glory. 
Deprivation, disease, and suffering are the lot of the mass, 
and it requires powerful nerves and great fortitude to stand 
up against that which the soldier has to endure. One tithe 
of his sufferings, aside from fatigue and exposure, will never 
be told. 

The weather is now cold and rainy, but has been intensely 
hot. The insect and worm tribe are infinite in number, and 
the little wood tick is always at work under your skin. I 
am often compelled to sleep on the bare ground, and without 
a tent. Such a night is a precursor to myriads of them. 
My health, however, is as good as that of the general aver- 
age about me. I feel pretty well when I get good food, not 
so well without it. Good beef, good mutton, good bread, 
brandy, ale, and wine is what the human system wants, and 
these I recommend to you. They are better than all the 
doctor's stuffs. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp No. 8 beeore Corinth, May 24, 1862. 

My dear Mother : 

In the midst of " battle and murder and sudden death," 
your letter of the 1 2th inst. is handed me. I snatch a hasty 



2o6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

moment to reply. I have waited for many days for the time 
to come when I might sit down to write you as I would 
wish, but the hurry of the march, the incessant labor at the 
breastworks, the din of the skirmish leave no opportunity 
for writing. I have slept in my clothes with bridle in hand 
for the past ten days and nights. We are close upon Corinth. 
Our pickets within sight of the enemy's entrenchments. 
My troops stack arms behind our own breastworks, and there 
I bivouac. You must, judging from the slips you sent me, 
have very meagre accounts of the movements of Sherman's 
Division. I have asked wife to forward the newspaper intelli- 
gence, which is partly reliable, and with which the Cincinnati 
papers have been filled. Pretty full accounts, I am told, 
have also been published in the New York Herald, a corre- 
spondent of which is with the division, and there also will 
be found Sherman's and Stuart's reports. Sherman's report 
is decidedly the best account of the battles of the 6th and 
7th, and Stuart's will locate the position of our brigade in 
the field those days. Many papers published in St. Louis 
and Chicago and local country papers in Ohio have been 
sent me in which my name is prominently mentioned, and 
they have been pleased to compliment me. I am only con- 
scious of having tried to do my duty. Acts of heroism were 
rife those days, and thousands of brave hearts ceased to beat. 
I rode many a weary mile over the dead and dying. Some 
of these days, if we live to meet, I will tell you some of the 
horrors of that battle. Strange how soon one becomes 
blunted to horror. How little one thinks of human suffer- 
ing and death and despair. I could tell you of trenches dug 
and filled with bodies, packed to lie close ; of gentlemen of the 
South, whose delicate hands, ringed fingers, and fine linen 
gave evidence of high birth and position. Twenty, thirty 
together in one hole ; men thrown in head downward or 
upward, clotted, mutilated, bloody, sometimes a man and 
horse together, and in the midst of these graves and trenches 
and the carrion of hundreds of dead horses, I camped for 
twenty- two days, right on that part of the battlefield which 
was the very charnel, and right where I halted my brigade 
on Monday night. From thence our course has been for- 



Letters 207 

ward ; every inch of the ground stubbornly contested by the 
enemy. We have crossed the State line from Tennessee, 
and now in Mississippi by regular parallels approach the 
stronghold of the enemy ; for every commanding ridge or 
hill there is a fight, a skirmish we call it here, and think 
but little of forty or fifty killed and one or two hundred 
wounded. . . . It is a terrible war in all its phases. 
God grant that our beloved country be once again blessed 
with peace. How little did we appreciate the blessing ! 
how priceless now would be its restoration ! You ask for 
incidents interesting to me. I wish, dear mother, I could 
gratify you. If I only had memory and a graphic pen I 
could give you a startling history, something in comparison 
to which the scenes in Scott and James would seem tame, 
but my aversion to writing amounts to a mania. I shrink 
from pen and paper as a mad dog does from water, and save 
to you and wife, I write ne'er a line to man or woman. I 
wish I had never learned to write, and could set my seal like 
the knights of old instead of aJGBxing the signature which has 
also become distasteful to me. I ought to tell you of some of 
my night marches when I have been ordered out in rain and 
utter darkness with my own regiment, unsupported, and with 
no one to divide the responsibility, and none but a doubtful 
resident as a guide. How, at the head of my men, with the 
guide's bridle in one hand and a pistol in the other to shoot 
him should he prove recreant, I have marched for miles 
through the pathless and almost impenetrable swamp, my 
men toiling after me with their cartridge-boxes slung at 
bayonet point to keep the powder dry. How with clothes 
wringing wet they have lain in ambuscade till day-dawn 
right under the enemy's guns without fire or food, word or 
whisper, till gray dawn, and then making reconnoissance, 
steal silently back. I could tell you of my charge when 
my color-guard were all killed, and my standard-bearer 
swept away by a falling tree, a tree cut sheer off by the 
solid shot from a cannon ; how my gallant horse pressed 
right through rank after rank and enabled me to rescue my 
flag ; or I could tell how the same gallant stallion (and I 
thank God he stands now unscathed right near me munch- 



2o8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

ing his oats) by three successive leaps bore me right up, not 
down, a precipice of rock almost perpendicular, and when 
one could hardly have found foot-hold for an antelope. For 
the first time in my life on horseback I closed my eyes in 
fear. Jagged rocks were behind me, a sheer perpendicular 
wall in front ; here and there a fissure where the wild vine 
caught root. I thought he must have fallen backwards and 
that I must die ingloriously mangled under him, but with 
unequalled power and activity he bore me to the top, and 
there amidst a perfect rain of balls he tossed his head and 
flung his neigh like a clear ringing trumpet. These things 
should be for others to tell ; it is not mine after I have 
fought my battle to tell my own story, but alas ! there are 
so many stories to tell that it is hard to find a historian ; 
and one's comrade, in scenes such as these transpiring, has 
enough to do to take care of himself instead of taking care 
of another's fame and notes to give it wing. Speaking of 
fame, I may as well give up the hope of it. This name of 
Smith, in these latter days, attaches to too many good men 
and true, to say nothing of the damned rascals who also 
inherit it. There are four colonels, one a Kirby Smith from 
Ohio. There is your friend, K. Kirby Smith of Southern 
notoriety, and now, to cap the climax, I have been brigaded 
with Morgan I,. Smith, the hero of Fort Donaldson. He is 
a dashing, fighting man, and we have an eminently fighting 
brigade, the left flank of which I still retain ; but a man by 
the name of Smith might as well attempt to pluck bright 
honor from the pale-faced moon as to win fame. If I figure 
in the ball, the scribblers attach the feat to Morgan ; if he 
performs some dauntless deed of heroism, I get the glory. 
But as I have said and written, this is not the war or the 
field in which to gather laurels ; it is unholy, unnatural fratri- 
cide. As well might he who has buried his knife in his 
brother's heart rush forth and exultingly brandish the drip- 
ping blade as evidence of good deed done, as he, the execu- 
tioner of the law (for we are nothing else than executioners 
sent forth by Government to see the law enforced), offer his 
trophies, the wrung heart of the widow and fatherless, the 
ruined plantation, the devastated field, the destruction of 



Letters 209 

the fond hopes of the loving, the ruined patrimony of the 
unborn, claiming fame, glory, and renown. In sadness and 
sorrow we draw the sword, the true soldier and patriot 
sheathes it in the body of the rebel in the same spirit as the 
patriarch of old offered his son. 

But, my dear mother, I must write you of yourself. I 
received two letters from wife, one acquainting me with your 
illness, one of your convalescence ; but I am grieved and 
shocked that you should have been so ill. You have been 
worried about me, and your anxiety has affected your head 
and brought on those dreadful hemorrhages. I know how 
prone you are to borrow trouble and always fear the worst ; 
but don't fear for me, dear mother ; the same God to whom 
you nightly pray for me will hear your prayers and the 
prayers of my wife and children. I have firm reliance upon 
Him, that He will uphold, sustain, and strengthen me, and 
bring me out of the conflict unharmed. If it should be my 
lot to go under — if I should fall, believe me, dear mother, I 
shall fall with my face to the foe, and then, in the language 
of the poet who has written the beautiful lines you have 
sent me, " Yield him 'neath the chastening rod, to His 
Country and his God." 

But banish all apprehensions from your mind. A few 
years, perhaps a few short months, will intervene when you 
and I together will join those who have gone before us, 
when we shall solve the great problem, fathom the great 
gulf, and relying on the Holy Word of God walk with the 
loved ones in the paths of Paradise. A little, only a little 
while, and the battle of life for both of us, dear mother, will 
have been fought, and, with God's help, the victory won. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Ine., 

Corinth, Miss., May 31, 1862. 

Well, the long agony is over, and Corinth is ours. Long 
before this letter reaches you, will your mind and heart have 
been set at ease in respect to my safety. You will be grati- 
fied to learn that my regiment was the first to drive in the 
enemy's pickets, the first to enter, and the first to unfurl the 



2IO Thomas Kilby Smith 

national flag at Corinth. That I am now Commandant of 
the Post, and that Major Fisher of my command is Provost 
Marshal of the city. How long I shall be stationed here I 
do not know, and how soon I shall be relieved of the com- 
mand of the Post. I hope, however, they will leave me 
time enough to give me a little rest ; until to-day I had not 
had trousers or boots ofi" for seven days and seven nights. 
But to-day Master Stephen provided me with a bucket of 
clean cold water and some clean linen, and you may be sure 
I went through the luxuries of a thorough ablution. I am 
now living in a fine cottage house, which was yesterday oc- 
cupied by General Bragg, and which he evacuated in my 
favor ; such are the fortunes of war, the wheel of which 
rapidly turns ; to-morrow it may be my fate. The enemy 
leaving, destroyed an immense amount of property, ten 
thousand bushels of wheat were burned in one pile ; beans, 
flour, all sorts of comestibles shared the same fate ; tents, 
quartermaster's stores, baggage of officers, arms, and ammu- 
nition were all ruthlessly sacrificed. They must have left in 
a terrible panic. I do not know what the country will say, 
but I regard the evacuation as a complete victory, and 
although a bloodless victory, none the less important on that 
account. They never could have stood before us had our 
batteries once opened, carnage must have raged. I suppose 
their policy now will be to give our troops the possession of 
the larger cities, thinking thereby to weaken us, and after- 
wards by contracting their forces, to cut us off" in detail. 
We are not yet advised where they are gone. There were 
probably from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five 
thousand troops here, and they seem to have left by three 
different routes. Those I was in pursuit of yesterday num- 
bered, judging from the accounts of prisoners and deserters, 
some thirty thousand. We rushed them four miles beyond 
Corinth until we were stopped by a burning bridge. My 
regiment was ordered back, but to-day cavalry and artillery, 
together with infantry, are in hot pursuit. I have no news 
since last evening, and am writing in hot haste lest I should 
miss the opportunity to write at all. 



Letters 



211 



My own health is pretty fair, considering all things. The 
weather is very hot, but as long as I can stay here I shall be 
but little exposed, and the water here is good. The troops 
have suffered intensely for want of water. We shall undoubt- 
edly have a protracted war, and a Southern campaign seems 
for me inevitable, so the sooner I get used to it the better. 
There is a rumor prevalent that we are under marching 
orders, and that our destination is Washington City. I have 
received no official communication yet, however, and am in 
the dark. It is astonishing how soon one gets used to this 
nomadic course of life, here to-day and gone to-morrow. 

For the present I am really living " en Prince." I have 
three grooms and six guards in constant attendance upon 
my horses ; and such horses ! In one respect at least, I 'm 
the " young Lochinvar " of the army ; Halleck, nor Thomas, 
Sherman, none of them can begin to show with me. My 
" Bell " is the very king of horses, and realizes to the very 
full, if any horse ever did, Job's description. Then I have 
one groom of the chambers, and my high chamberlain is 
Stephen Davis, vulgariy called " Kernel," a name which 
he despises as altogether beneath his dignity. Truth to 
say, he looks down upon me latterly a good deal, and I 
should really feel reproached, if I had not learned eariy in 
life " that no man is a hero to his valet de chambre." 

Then I have six guards for my chamber door and hall, 
and twelve guards for my entrance hall, and as I have 
pressed into the service as contraband of war a "neat- 
handed Phyllis " of the African persuasion, who boils coffee 
to perfection, and by intuition knows the nature of a dodger 
and its congener, light biscuit, you need have no fears that 
as a modern Corinthian, I shall go under for lack of creature 
comforts. As I before remarked, I hope they will let me 
remain a little while to enable me to recuperate, but if they 
do put me on the march for Washington I shall not have 
much to regret, for I swear I would not take Tennessee and 
Mississippi, from what I have seen of either soil, climate, 
water, herds, flocks, men or women, for a swine pasture if 
they both together came as precious gift. As for this city 



212 Thomas Kilby Smith 

of Corinth, to which I have come not as Paul to that other 
Corinth (they call this Corinth, by the way, with the 
strongest possible emphasis on the " rinth "), that for which 
it is the most remarkable is flies, not tent flies, nor the in- 
sect spoken of in Scripture, the wicked flea, though the 
wicked did flee from here ; but flies, the same veritable, old, 
brown-coated curse that I used to chase over the window- 
pane when I was a baby, impale on a pin when I got a little 
older ; put up in cages to mourn over when Sally Tinney 
stepped on them, and which finally have come back to me 
multiplied as the sands of the sea, at morning, at noon, and 
at night as thick as the leaves of Vallambrosa. Damn the 
flies ! they remind you of home, and you miss them in the 
woods ; they are eminently fond of houses and cities, scorn- 
ing " green fields beyond the swelling flood " — and this city 
being the fungus growth of railroads, three of which concen- 
trate, and the only business of each being the transportation 
of sugar and molasses, here they most do congregate, and I 
only wish that in their congregations they would chew sugar 
and eschew me. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp CHEWAi.r,A, Miss., June 9, 1862. 



We are now encamped near a small town called Chewalla, 
about fifteen miles south of Corinth and near the State line 
that divides Tennessee from Missouri. But I have just re- 
ceived marching orders for five o'clock to-morrow morning, 
and as yet do not know our destination. Memphis and Fort 
Pillow are taken ; their army must be scattered ; we know 
it was a good deal demoralized ; where they will make a 
stand is the merest matter of conjecture. 

The heat begins to make itself felt, though the nights 
continue cool. I have had tolerably good health, nothing 
to worry about. I believe I stand the campaign better than 
the average of the men and ofl&cers. 

There is no use, however, to attempt to disguise the fact 
that a summer campaign in the South must be terribly fatal to 



Letters 2 1 3 

our troops. Not that the Northern men are not just as capa- 
ble as the Southerners, indeed more so, to endure the vicissi- 
tudes, but no troops can stand it. We must use fortitude, 
and do the best we can,— I leave the result with God, in 
whom I have firm reliance. I am always sustained by 
thoughts of you and of your prayers in my behalf. I long, 
oh ! how ardently, to see you, but I must not think of it! 
God only knows what is in the future for us. I could not 
leave my post ; I would not be permitted to do so however 
strong my desire. I must press on to the bitter end. 

You want to know something about me, but I hardly know 
what to vv.-ite about. I am sitting in a tent in the midst of 
dense woods, but near the side of a dusty road, over which 
regiments are marching, and all towards the South. My 
soldiers are all about cooking rations, and making other 
preparations for the march to-morrow. To-morrow night I 
may probably sleep on the ground, with a saddle blanket, 
because our transportation train will not be with the regi- 
ment, and there is no other way to carry my tent or cot. 
This will be no inconvenience to me, for I have very often 
done so, and that in the rain, with nothing but an india- 
rubber cape over me. I sleep sound with the bridle of my 
horse in my hand, and am refreshed at daylight. We carry 
canteens of water and food in haversacks, hard crackers, and 
salt pork. 

We are always on the lookout for the enemy, flankers and 
skirmishers, and advance guards. Men are prevented from 
straggling. We march on steadily, halting for a few mo- 
ments every hour. When we camp, pickets and sentinels 
are posted, and they who are not on guard sleep sound. Men 
sleep the soundest in the presence of danger. I have known 
them to go to sleep on the battlefield. Indeed, I have never 
known sweeter sleep or more delightful dreams than I have 
had behind the breastworks of fortifications which we 
momentarily expected would be stormed, and amid the in- 
cessant booming of cannon, bursting of shells, and rattling 
of musketry. 



214 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Headquarters 54Th Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp Chewalla, Miss., June lo, 1862. 

My dear Wife : 

"We have marched some fifteen miles beyond Corinth, and 
in a few moments shall proceed on our march to Grand 
Junction, some twenty miles from here and on the route to 
Memphis. I remained in occupation of Corinth three days, 
and was succeeded by General Halleck, who now occupies 
the quarters I left. The papers have scandalously falsified, 
as they usually do, the movements of Sherman's Division, 
A man in John Groesbeck's regiment claims the rather 
barren honor of flying the first flag over Corinth, when the 
fact is that mine, which was the first by two hours and forty 
minutes to enter the town, had been floating for that length 
of time. The town was under guard by my troops, and 
Major Fisher was acting as Provost Marshal (a post from 
which he was only the day before yesterday relieved) at the 
time the troops who claimed the credit entered. So much 
for newspapers, which are a tissue of falsehood and misrep- 
resentations. These things I know you care nothing about, 
and indeed I would hardly take the trouble to explain ex- 
cept to avoid the absurdity which would attach to my former 
letters, if you believe the newspapers. 

The weather is becoming pretty warm, though the nights 
continue cool, indeed I may say cold, for two or three 
blankets are comfortable, and there are no mosquitoes. We 
do not suffer so much from the wood ticks and jiggers as 
farther back. I am told that our march will lie through a 
high and tolerably fertile country, a matter to be much de- 
sired. Since our occupancy of Tennessee, all supplies have 
been scarce, the country people very poor and bereft of 
everything in the way of eatables. I hardly know what 
keeps them from starvation. , . . We think the back 
of the rebellion is broken in the Southwest, but we keep up 
a constant vigilance, for the foe is insidious. Beauregard's 
army must have been a good deal demoralized before the 
evacuation of Corinth, if we may believe the accounts of de- 
serters and prisoners. 



Letters 2 1 5 

I suppose our destination is Memphis. They may make 
a stand against us on the way. We are looking anxiously 
for action from McClellan. Our army is the great centre, 
his the left, and the forces in Arkansas the right wing, and 
we ought to move forward together. We shall be victorious, 
we shall conquer, but we shall never subjugate this people. 
My opinions in this behalf, so often expressed, and more 
than a year ago, have never changed. They are a people 
very little understood at the North ; their bitter hostility 
to the North will never change, certainly not with this 
generation ; they have learned to fear us and to hate. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Tne., 

Lagrange, Tennessee, June 21, 1862. 

Dear Mother and Hei.en : 

We are now encamped at Lagrange, a most beautiful town 
in Tennessee, surrounded by lovely scenery, the country 
slightly undulating, watered by Wolf River, a clear, cold, 
and swift-running stream. This was the famous hunting- 
ground of the Chickasaw Indians, and here what was called 
the lost district, the disputed ground between Mississippi 
and Tennessee, to battle for which the militia was called out 
years ago. The place is celebrated for its college and female 
seminaries, and the very great beauty of its suburban resi- 
dences. Its railroad facilities, its pure water, and healthy 
atmosphere have made it in past times a favorite resort for 
wealthy citizens from Memphis, Mobile, and further South, 
and luxury and refinement have characterized its inhabi- 
tants. Our troops were received here with chilling reserv^e. 
The stores were closed, the hotels refused accommodations 
to officers, and ladies, who had been unable to escape by 
flight to the plantations or elsewhere, shut themselves up. 
The men had pretty much all managed to get away. As 
the few, however, who were left came in contact with the 
rank and file, and began to discover that we were not the 
Goths and Vandals they had been led to believe, and 
also that the great lever, gold, was ready to be plied and 
piled, they wonderfully changed countenances, began to 



2 1 6 Tho7nas Kilby Smiik 

brighten, and the larders, poorly supplied, however, were 
opened. . . . 

Our brigade had been here but a day when we were ordered 
to Holly Springs, distant some twenty-five miles south. 
We made there a forced march, going, returning, destroying 
a bridge and trestlework of a railroad within three days. 
We had a slight skirmish at a place nine miles beyond Holly 
Springs, in which we lost four wounded and killed eight of 
the enemy. Their infantry occupied the city, but fled at 
our approach. I was appointed Provost of the city, and my 
regimental flag floated from the Court-House. The history 
of that flag in this regard is somewhat remarkable — in a 
future letter I will give it to you. Holly Springs, as you 
know, is one of the principal cities of Mississippi, surrounded 
by magnificent plantations, in the midst of the cotton-grow- 
ing region. The people are very rich, or rather have been, 
and are the true representatives of the South. Our reception 
there was somewhat different from what it had been here. 
All the prominent gentlemen of the town called upon me in 
my ofl&cial capacity, and many of them tendered me the 
hospitalities of their houses, which in one or two instances I 
accepted. They had lost a great deal by the burning of 
cotton. Many of the wealthiest men had been ruined. 
They did not seem to sympathize with their own army that 
was devastating the land. The plantations along the march 
were very beautiful, the houses are built with a great deal 
of taste, the spacious lawns and parks and cultivated grounds 
kept trim and neat. This is the season for cultivating 
cotton, and hosts of slaves were in the fields, stopping work 
and running to the fences to see us pass, and to chafi" with 
the men. They understand just as well what is going on as 
their masters. They seem fat and happy enough, but are 
pretty ragged. Suffering will be rife, however, through 
whatever regions these armies pass, and the South will groan 
at the desolation of its land. Bitterly, bitterly, will they 
rue the grievous sins they have committed, but never again 
will they be forced into union. The United States no longer 
exist, between the North and the South is a great gulf fixed, 
and the hearts of the people will never bridge it. We may 



Letters 



217 



conquer, but never subdue. Their lands are beautiful, their 
climate lovely, fruits and flowers, and magnificent forest 
trees. The holly and the pine, the live oak, the mimosa, 
the bay, the magnolia, are grand, and the mocking bird and 
thrush make them vocal. The people are strong in intellect, 
but enervated in body. The women are pretty, but pale. 
After all, perhaps Providence is working out some great 
design through the agency of this bloody war. It is a 
strange fact that our Northern men stand the effects of the 
climate better than those to the manner born. Perhaps a 
new infusion ofbetter blood will regenerate. . . . I have 
this moment, even as I write, received an order to hold my 
troops in readiness to march towards Memphis at two 
o'clock this day. It is now twelve m. So you see there is 
but little time for private griefs or private joys. This is one 
great drawback to comfort in the army, you never know 
what will happen to you the next moment, and no sooner 
do you begin to rejoice that your " lines are cast in pleas- 
ant places, ' ' than you are ordered off, you know not where. 
I keep Stephen worried out of his wits. ... I entered 
the army the 9th day of last September, nearly ten months 
have past. In all that time I have never been absent from 
my post one single day or night. 



Heiadquarters 54TH Regt. O. V, Inf., 
Camp near Moscow, Tenn., Sunday, June 29, 1862. 

My last letter to you was dated from I^agrange yester- 
day week, and written so hurriedly, for I was just on the 
eve of march, that I think it must have been unintelligible. 
We are so hurried from point to point, the mails so uncer- 
tain, and facilities and opportunity for writing so scant, that 
it really becomes a task, or rather I should say enterprise 
hard to succeed in, the getting of a letter from camp to one's 
friends. I wrote, if I recollect, that we had marched from 
Chewalla to I^agrange, that from thence my brigade had 
made a hurried descent upon Holly Springs, one of the prin- 
cipal cities of Mississippi, where we expected to meet the 
enemy in considerable force ; that they fled at our approach; 



2 1 8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and that, returning from that point to Lagrange, we found 
marching orders for Memphis, for which march I was pre- 
pared when I wrote that letter. Our course lay through a 
country more fertile and more highly cultivated than any we 
had met, but the weather being hot and dry, and the road 
exceedingly dusty, our troops were made to suffer very 
much. We accomplished nineteen miles the j&rst day, and 
were halted at a town called I^afayette. From thence we 
dispatched a train of fifty wagons to Memphis for provisions, 
our rations having given out. These returned in safety, but 
a train of cars, which was started laden with returning 
soldiers, was intercepted by a force of cavalry, thrown from 
the track, and Colonel . . . with a number of soldiers 
taken prisoner. This circumstance, together with intelli- 
gence that Breckenridge had concentrated a force at Holly 
Springs, determined a counter-march with a view of attack- 
ing him at that point, and therefore our troops were brought 
where we now are, some ten miles from Lagrange and 
twenty-five from Holly Springs, where we shall probably go 
to-morrow. 

The weather is becoming very warm, many of my com- 
mand are suffering from the effects of the heat and the 
privations and discomforts to which they are necessarily 
subjected. With the exception of camp dysentery and 
diarrhoea, whatever it may be called, my own health is 
pretty good. The bowel complaint is of a very singular 
nature, and not to be combated with the ordinary remedies. 
I have suffered from it ever since the battle of Shiloh, more 
or less at different times. 

Major Fisher has been very sick, he is now convalescent. 
We shall have a summer campaign right here in the cotton 
states. A furlough or leave of absence is a thing utterly im- 
possible, therefore I make up my mind to stick it out. I 
had hoped after the evacuation of Corinth that there were 
hopes of a close of the war, but these hopes have proved 
delusions. McClellan is slow, we are much disappointed in 
his movements. As a consequence, Beauregard and Breck- 
enridge are rallying in the South. The people to a man and 



Letters 2 1 9 

woman are decidedly and unanimously " Secesh." We 
have no friends here but the slaves. The war will be a ten 
years' war at the least. Ohio must lose fifty thousand men 
for her quota before it is closed, and the sooner the draft 
is made upon her, the better I shall be pleased. . . . 
The war is terrible in its effects here. Homes destroyed, 
families ruptured, parted, never to meet again ; fields and 
farms desolated, country ravaged, people starving. God has 
cursed the land. When can their evils be stayed ? 

There are beautiful forests and broad savannahs here ; all 
fruits and cereals flourish ; a land for milk and honey ; if 
peace could come, plenty would follow. The insect life here 
is wonderful ; such innumerable bugs and spiders, moths 
and winged and crawling things you never could imagine 
without seeing, while lizards and chameleons, of all sizes 
and colors, are constantly in pursuit of their game. It is no 
unusual thing for me to drive the lizards off my cot before 
I lie down at nights, and every night the spiders crawl over 
me by myriads. I have been bitten by spiders but once or 
twice, and with no serious effects, but I do suffer from lice, 
fleas, bedbugs, and wood-ticks. 

My horses are all in tolerably good condition, though they 
miss their hay. There is no hay grown in this country — its 
place is supplied with blades of com. Oats do not thrive 
here, either, and Northern horses feel the difference. Mine 
carry me very well notwithstanding, up to this time. 

I like your strictures upon the newspapers, and am glad 
you understand them. Newspaper articles, unless they ap- 
pear over the signatures of well-known and perfectly respon- 
sible parties, are regarded by the army, both officers and 
privates, worthless for information upon any current event, 
especially matters connected with the service. Mere puffs, 
they generally emanate from paid correspondents or scrib- 
blers, whose object is to write a man into notoriety, as they 
would publish a patent medicine or advertise a sale at 
auction. 

You would all doubtless like to know more of me and my 



2 20 Thomas Kilby Smith 

surroundings than I have it in my power to write. The 
faculty of description and vigor of memory may make many 
a fortune for the striving actor in scenes such as these tran- 
spiring about me. Every day is an incident, every night in 
reaUty a dream of romance. The moonlight, the forest, the 
bugle, the sentry, the alarm, the march, stealthy and cat- 
like, stealing on the foe, or with loud alarm of drum and 
fife and flaunting of flag, dashing down to intimidate ; the 
bivouac, the encampment, the gathering around the camp 
fires, the bottle, the pipe, the tale, the jest, all that you read 
of in novels, only a good deal more so, all these are my daily 
life. If one battle would suffice, but many and many a battle 
must be fought, rivers of blood must yet flow, before we can 
herald peace. 

Well, dear children. Mamma will read this letter or a part 
of it to you, and while reading it, you must reflect that 
father is far down South on the line between Tennessee and 
Mississippi, in a large forest, on the banks of Wolf River, in 
a hot climate, where the cotton grows ; that he is sitting 
under the shade of his tent, writing to you, surrounded by 
soldiers, and all the pomp and panoply of war, that he is 
battling or about going into battle to secure you the same 
rights and the same good government that was secured to 
him and his fathers by our Revolutionary forefathers, and 
you must pray for the success of his cause, and for his de- 
liverance from the evil, and if he should fall in the battle, 
you must pray for the good of his soul, but always be tender 
and kind to your mother, your aunt, your teachers and 
friends. 

God bless you all. 

HlBADQUARTERS 54TH REGT. O. V. I., 

Camp near Moscow, July lo, 1862. 

. . . I wrote you a long letter from this point about the 
first inst., which I entrusted to a division train going to 
Memphis. This train was attacked by the enemy's cavalry 
and a sharp skirmish ensued, in which they had twenty-eight 
killed. We lost eighteen, and what the fate of my letter is 
I do not know. If the ' ' Secesh ' ' get it I trust they will find its 



Letters 221 

perusal interesting. We have been marching and counter- 
marching until our troops are well-nigh done out. Water 
is hard to be got in this country at this season of the year, 
and we suffer very much from thirst and the heat of the sun. 
Although fatigued, my health continues good, but my duties 
are very arduous. You can have no conception of the suflfer- 
ing attendant upon a march of a whole division with three 
or four batteries of artillery, over these roads. There has 
been no rain for a long time ; as the train proceeds the dust 
rises and the whole heavens for miles in extent are obscured, 
the light of the sun dimmed, while the atmosphere becomes 
so thick that one can scarcely breathe. We commence our 
march at about four o'clock, halt about ten, or at four o'clock 
in the evening, going to camp about ten. Camp for me is 
simply to dismount at the tree under which I propose to lie. 
There I lie down and go to sleep. 

I have this moment received orders to march and must 
close here. . . . 

Headquarters 54TH regt. O.V. Ine., 

Camp " Jupiter Ammon," July 11, 1862. 
My dear Wife : 

I am here at an important point on the State line of Missis- 
sippi and Tennessee at what is called " Ammon's Bridge." 
I have a separate command of infantry, artillery, and cavalry 
under my sole control, so that for the present I feel pretty in- 
dependent. I conduct my camp as I please and scout and 
patrol the country to suit myself. I came down for an en- 
gagement with a detachment of cavalry, known as ' ' Jackson's 
Cavalry, ' ' but they would not stay for me. It has been my 
constant ill fortune always to fail in getting an engagement 
when I have been alone in command. I have been in plenty 
of skirmishes, but never in one on my own hook. 

The first opportunity I ever had for distinction, was when 
I made the march through the swamp to " Gauss " just two 
days before the battle of Shiloh and of which I gave you de- 
scription. I went down alone with my regiment to trap a 
body of cavalry, passing at night six miles beyond our own 



222 Thomas Kilby Smith 

lines and within one half mile of the enemies' camp. We 
lay in sight of their camp fires all night and could hear them 
talking. I was balked in my manoeuvre, however, by delay 
on the part of the 5th Ohio Cavalry, who had been detailed 
to act in concert with me, but who failed in keeping time, 
and my quarry made its escape by another ford. I feel 
anxious to fight one battle of my own. All this is uninter- 
esting to you, of course. I am encamped now at a very 
pretty place. The woods right on the banks of Wolf River 
that abounds with fish ; and it is a swift- running stream with 
sandy bottom. I have also a remarkably fine cold spring, 
giving abundance of delicious water, and here I expect to 
stay for some days. I hope to recuperate, for I have been 
much troubled with diarrhoea, which I fear has become 
chronic. I have never been relieved even for a day since 
the aflfair at Shiloh ; save this trouble, my health is fair. 
The weather is becoming very warm, we can only make 
marches early in the morning or late in the evening. Our 
horses wilt down — nothing but negroes and slaves can stand 
labor in this climate. On my last march to Holly Springs, I 
was encamped for four days just on the edge of a large cotton 
field. In that vicinity cotton has been the great crop, but this 
year there as elsewhere the cotton fields have mostly been 
planted with corn. The corn here is very large, tasseled 
out, roasting ears, almost ripe. Blue grass, herd grass, 
clover, or timothy won't grow here. Oats and wheat hardly 
worth gathering, but potatoes, corn, cotton, sweet potatoes 
and fruits of all kinds, particularly peaches and apples, thrive 
wonderfully. I never saw such blackberries as I have seen 
here, growing on vines twenty feet or more high, so high 
that the topmost branches could not be reached by a man on 
horseback, and the berry almost fabulous in size, an inch 
and a half long, perfectly sweet and without core. A man 
could easily pick half a bushel in an hour, and I suppose we 
had twenty bushels a day brought into camp while near the 
patch. Almost all our Northern fruits, I doubt not, would 
grow with equal profusion if properly cultivated here. 
Most of the people I meet here are well bred, but not always 
well educated. They are invariably and persistently seces- 



Letters 223 

sion in their politics, but generally opposed to the war. It 
is absurd to think of conquering an union, and I believe that 
an attempt to subjugate these people will be equally futile. 
There is a bitterness, a rancor of hostility, particularly on 
the part of their women and children, of which you can have 
no conception. I have never for one moment changed my 
views in this regard, so often expressed to you, and in your 
hearing, before the breaking out of hostilities. The war will 
teach them to respect the courage of the North, but it has 
made two peoples, and millions of lives must be sacrificed 
before its termination. Governor Tod has appealed to the 
people of Ohio for five thousand. He had better go to draft- 
ing. Ohio must contribute fifty thousand, and those right 
speedily. The resources of this country have always been 
underrated ; this is another absurdity. Their people live 
far better than we in Ohio out of the cities. I know this to 
be a fact, for I am daily an eye-witness. A man here with 
twelve or fifteen hundred acres is a prince. His slaves fare 
better than our working farmers. His soil is more kindly, 
his climate better, and better than all, he understands the 
science of living. He enjoys life more than we do, and so do 
his wife and children ; and they all know this. They are de- 
termined to be independent, and they will be. There is no 
house I go to but where I find the spinning wheel and loom 
at work. Their hills are covered with sheep and cattle, 
their valleys literally seas of corn. As long as the North- 
erner's foot is on the soil just so long there will be some one 
to dispute its possession, inch by inch, and meanwhile they 
will find resources for themselves in food and raiment. It is 
a magnificent country, such timber I never saw. The white 
oaks would gladden the eyes of the Coleraine coopers. I 
have noticed many a one eight, perhaps nine feet in diame- 
ter at the base, straight, rifted, and running up without 
catface or flaw, sixty, seventy, eighty feet to the first limb ; 
beeches, hickory, holly, chestnut, all in the same propor- 
tions ; and that most gorgeous and beautiful tree, the mag- 
nolia, in all its pride of blossom, each bloom perfect in 
beauty, velvety in leaf and blossom and fragrant as the spicy 
gales from Araby, or a pond lily or attar of roses, or a fresh 



2 24 Thomas Kilby Smith 

pineapple, any or all combined, the tree graceful and majes- 
tic, proud in bearing so lovely a bloom. The flora of the 
country is truly beautiful. I am not enough of a botanist to 
know, nor have I the memory to bear in mind the name of 
the plants I do know, that are made to bloom in our green- 
houses, and here grow wild ; but through the woods and 
along the roadside many and many a one I see growing in 
wild and splendid luxuriance, wasting their blushes and 
' ' fragrance on the desert air, ' ' that a prince might envy and 
covet for his garden. I do not remember whether I made 
mention to you of the azalias that were just bursting into 
bloom on the 6th and 7th of April, and that while sore 
pressed in the heat of battle, I was absurd enough to gather 
a handful of them ; but so it was. The whole woods at a 
certain part of the battlefield were bedecked with them and 
the whole air laden with their perfume. Col. Tom Worth- 
ington got off a very pretty poem about the subject. 

Kiss all my dear little ones and read them my letters, that 
is, if you can manage to decipher the pencil. Some day, 
perhaps, if God spares our lives, I shall be able to entertain 
them with stories of my campaign in the sunny South, tell 
them of the beautiful singing birds, the wonderful butterflies 
and gorgeous beetles, of the planter's life and of the flocks 
of little niggers all quite naked, that run to the fences and 
gaze on us as we march by, and of the wenches in the cotton 
field that throw down the shovel and the hoe and begin to 
dance like Tam O' Shanter witches, if our band strikes up ; 
and of the beautiful broad piazzas and cool wide-spreading 
lawns of the rich planters' houses. Some day we '11 have a 
heap to talk about. 

I have no very late news from Richmond, but what we 
have got has had a tendency to depress our spirits a good 
deal. We feel McClellan will be outgeneralled after all. If 
he does not succeed in taking Richmond, we are in for a ten 
years' war at least. Some of those poor people in the South 
are heartily sick of it, while we shall plant their soil thick 
with graves of our own dead. 



Letters 225 

Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp near Memphis, July 28, 1862. 

My dear Mother : 



I wonder sometimes that I do not lose myself in the fre- 
quent Sittings I have made ; as to the properties, the belong- 
ings, they are narrowed down to the smallest possible 
compass. My little leather travelling trunk is my bed, 
board, lodging, library, and secretary. Its key long disap- 
peared ; and as it is strapped up, I bid an affectionate adieu to 
all its contents, in the firm belief that I shall never see them 
again. 

Soldiers are great thieves on principle ; when they can't 
steal from the enemy, they circumvent each other to keep in 
practice, taking that which, " not enriching them," causes, 
in its loss, their comrades to swear worse than ' ' our army 
in Flanders." One b}' one my shirts, drawers, socks, 
gloves, boots, handkerchiefs, books have disappeared. The 
last theft committed upon me was amusing from its bold- 
ness. We were encamped on the edge of an immense cotton 
field near a grove before " Holly Springs," on our second 
march there, when we shelled the city. It was terribly hot ; 
I was longing for something to read, when Stephen most 
opportunely produced from his bag a most excellent copy of 
Byron, that I had taken from Bragg' s quarters at Corinth. 
I had entirely forgotten the book, which the boy had boned 
for his own use, and was overjoyed to get hold of anything 
to relieve ennui and the deadly tedium of waiting orders 
with the thermometer at an hundred and upwards, so I seized 
" My Lord," and forthwith repaired to a log in the shade ; 
but just as I was composing myself to read, a chattering 
above made me look up to see a fox squirrel and a jay bird 
fight. I drew my pistol, aimed at the squirrel, and in that 
brief moment the book was spirited away by some lurking 
vagabond who probably sold it for a glass of grog. For three 
long summer days I cursed that thief Last night our regi- 
mental surgeon hung his trousers on the fence before his 
tent; they vanished just as he turned his back, and being his 
sole remaining pair, left him disconsolate. I can tell you 



226 Thomas Kilby Smith 

many an amusing instance of just such purloinings as vexa- 
tious as they are ludicrous. 

Still, barring attack sometimes talked of, it being a new 
base of operations, I think we shall hardly begin a fall cam- 
paign before the last of September or the first of October. I 
also acknowledged receipt of your most affectionate letter of 
the 4th inst., found here with quite a budget of mail. You 
say you look only for Halleck's army. Events mill ti plying 
and succeed with lightning-like rapidity. Since the date of 
your letter Halleck has been given in charge of all the armies 
of the Union, et nous verrons. 

The result of this struggle no human mind can foretell ; 
the farther I penetrate the bowels of this Southern land, the 
more fully I am convinced that its inhabitants are a people 
not to be whipped. The unanimity of feeling among them 
is wonderful. The able-bodied men are all in the ?rmy. 
We find none en ro2ite but the old, the feeble, the sick, the 
women. These last dauntless to the last. Those the army 
have left behind have learned that there is nothing for them 
to fear from us. We shower gold and benefits which they 
accept with a greed and rapacity ... 

Children are reared to curse us. The most strange and 
absurd stories are told of us, and stranger still, they are be- 
lieved. I have been gazed at as if I were a wild beast in a 
menagerie. The slaves thought we were black. We are 
scorned, though feared, hated, maligned. Seventeen hun- 
dred people have left Memphis within three days rather than 
take the oath of allegiance. Leaving, they have sacrificed 
estate, wealth, luxury, and the majority of them have gone 
into the Confederate army. There is scarce a lady in the 
city ; the few who are left, our open and avowed enemies. 
We shall always whip them in the open field, we may cut 
them off in detail ; we shall never by whipping them restore 
the Union. If some miraculous interposition of Divine 
Providence does not put an end to the unnatural strife, we 
shall fight as long as there is a Southerner left to draw a 
sword. Europe is powerless to intervene. England may 
take sides, but she can't grow cotton in the face of a Federal 



Letters 227 

army. France, who is now equipping her navies, who by- 
similarity of language and habit has close afl&liations with 
Louisiana, who is eagerly stretching out her hand for colo- 
nies, and to whose arms the Southern Mississippi planters 
would eagerly look for protection — France must beware ; 
Russia is no uninterested spectator. The first step towards 
intervention is the match to kindle the blaze of war all over 
Europe. The South would gladly colonize ; it is her only 
hope for redemption. Congress has forced a new issue. 
Slavery is doomed. New levies must be forced. Three 
hundred thousand men from the North will not obey the 
President's call and volunteer. Drafting on the one side 
and conscription on the other. The result is plain — a mili- 
tary dictatorship, then consolidation. The days of the Re- 
public are numbered. But a little while and the strong right 
arm is the oxAy protection to property, the value of property 
existing only in name. 

These thoughts are gloomy, but I must confess there is but 
little to encourage one who perils his life for his country's 
honor. 

You flatter me when you say my letters are interesting to 
you. Save to you, or to wife, I am inclined to think there 
would be found in these letters little worth perusal. They 
have almost invariably been written while upon the march, 
in bivouac, often behind intrenchments, right in front of the 
enemy, and only to reassure you of my continued safety. I 
continually regret that the pen of the ready writer has not 
been given me, with industry commensurate. I might then 
have made pencillings by the wayside, through the wilder- 
ness and the camp, worth more than passing notice. For 
four long months my life has been rife in incident ; the cir- 
cumstance that would have made an era to date from in 
times that are past, being so rapidly followed by one of more 
startling nature, as to drive it from the memory, and so the 
drama of life has gone on, the thrill of excitement a daily 
sensation. 

I had become somewhat familiarized with camp life and its 
surroundings before I undertook to recruit my own regiment 



228 Thomas Kilby Smith 

at Camp Dennison. The fall and winter passed away quietly 
enough in barracks, though it was no light task wdth me, to 
recruit, organize, and drill a regiment of new levies. 

Suddenly and before spring was opened, marching orders 
came and we found ourselves hurried into the field, without 
arms or adequate camp equipage. The first issue of arms 
I had condemned as unreliable and returned to the State 
arsenal. Within a week of our arrival at Paducah a detach- 
ment from my regiment with borrowed arms had taken pos- 
session of Columbus. There our colors waved for the first 
time over an enemy's fortification, and I may say, par 
parenthese, this of these colors, that their history is rather 
peculiar. The regiment never had its regimental colors ; the 
flag we carry was presented by a Masonic lodge of Cleveland 
to a company I recruited in that city. It floats over me as 
I write, and I thank God is unstained by dishonor. It 
waved at Columbus, at Chickasaw Bluff" ; at Shiloh its guard 
of four men were all killed, its bearer crushed and killed by 
the falling of a tree-top, cut off" by solid shot. The staff" was 
broken and the flag tangled in the branches ; there I dis- 
mounted for the first and only time during that day to rescue 
the old flag, which I took under a sheet of flame. I rode 
upon it the rest of that day, slept upon it at night, and on 
Monday flaunted it in the face of the Crescent City Guards. 
The old flag floated at Russell's house. We were in reserve 
in that battle, but under fire. It was foremost in all the 
advances upon Corinth, and the first planted inside the in- 
trenchments. Since the evacuation of Corinth, on detached 
service, it has been unfurled at all the important points ; 
at I^agrange, at Holly Springs, at Moscow, at Ammon's 
Bridge, at lyafaj^ette, at Germantown, at White's Station, 
and now at Memphis. But, to return, we received our arms 
at Paducah, and were terribly exposed while encamped there. 
From thence we were transported on steamboats to Chicka- 
saw Bluffs on the celebrated Tennessee expedition. For 
nine days we were crowded close on small steamboats, and 
the first day we disembarked were compelled to wade streams 
breast high, the weather terribly cold. We were driven 
back by high water. We again embarked and landed at 



Letters 229 

Pittsburg Landing. There my men began to feel the eflfects 
of the terrible exposure to which they had been subjected. 
But no time was allowed to recuperate, constant and severe 
marches by night and by day kept the army on the qui vive. 
I can assure you there was no surprise at Shiloh, I made a 
tremendous night march only the Thursday before, of which 
I have heretofore given you some account ; was ordered upon 
a march that very Sunday morning, and was setting picket 
guard till twelve o'clock of Saturday night. Well, then 
came the great battle and the burying of the dead, and here 
I will refer you to an autograph order of General Sherman 
which I enclose ; he will doubtless be a great man in time 
to come, and it will be worth while to preserve as a 
memorial of the times. . . . After the burial of the 
dead and a brief breathing spell in a charnel-house, we 
were ordered forward ; then came more skirmishing, then 
the advance upon Corinth by regular parallels, the felling of 
enormous trees, to form abattis, the ditch, the rampart, often 
thrown up by candle-light. Scouting, picketing, advancing 
in force, winning ground inch by inch, bringing up the heavy 
siege guns ; at last the evacuation, the flight, the pursuit, 
then the occupation of the country. Now my labors were 
not lessened, though my responsibilities increased. I was 
often upon detached service, far away from the main army, 
as at Ammon's Bridge, where I lay for ten days, and where 
I had frequent skirmishes, taking many prisoners. There 
I made acquaintance with the planters, and finally, when I 
left, destroyed the structure, by chopping it away and by 
burning, bringing upon my head, doubtless, the anathemas 
of all the country-side. There is a portion of Tennessee and 
Mississippi where they know me, and where I think my 
memory will be green for some time to come. And now I 
am at Memphis or rather in the suburbs, that I assure you 
are beautiful. The shrubbery' is splendidly luxurious, the 
most exquisite flowers, magnificent houses and grounds and 
a splendid country about it. I do not wonder its people have 
made boast of their sunny South ; no more beautiful land is 
spread out to the sun, but now devastation and ruin stares 
it in the face. I have met but few of the people, those I 



230 Thomas Kilby Smith 

have seen are sufficiently polite ; but it is easy to see we are 
not welcome guests, that the Union sentiment expressed, is 
expressed pro hac vice. If I stay here long I will write you 
more about them. Thus you have a brief synopsis of the 
history of my regiment in the field ; unfortunately, it has no 
historian in its ranks ; all connected with it have been satis- 
fied with doing their duty, without recording their acts. 
Thus while we see in every paper, officers and regiments 
lauded and praised, the most insignificant performances 
magnified into glowing acts of heroism, the most paltry 
skirmishes into great battles, we find ourselves unknown. I 
do not regard courage in battle as a very extraordinary 
quality, but fortitude on the march and in the trenches, in 
the endurance of the thousand vicissitudes that attach to 
such a campaign as we have gone through, is above all praise. 
My men, now sadly reduced in numbers — for dysentery, 
diarrhoea, camp fever, exposure, to say nothing of wounds, 
have done their work — have shown this fortitude in a superior 
degree. They have been a forlorn hope, have always led the 
van, have never missed a march, a battle, or a skirmish, but 
their history will never be written, the most of them will go 
to their graves unhonored and unsung. But I am wear3dng 
you with too long a letter, written not under the most favor- 
able auspices. I enclose you a report from Sherman partly 
mutilated before I received it. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp near Memphis, July 22, 1862. 



I seize the earliest opportunity to advise you of my safe 
arrival at this point, now in occupation by the troops of Gen- 
eral Sherman, as you have probably ere this learned through 
the newspapers. Our last marches have been tedious and 
the troops have suflfered much from the heat of the weather. 
You may judge of the intensity of the heat when I tell you 
that as we marched our Brigade through the streets of 
Memphis at seven o'clock in the morning of yesterday the 
mercur>^ stood at 102 degrees in the shade. To-day is 



Letters 231 

cloudy and somewhat cooler, a fortunate thing for me, for as 
Division Officer of the Day it becomes my duty to set all the 
pickets, which will involve hard riding all day and night. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Memphis, July 23, 1862. 
My dear Motheir : 

I seize the briefest moment to advise you of my health and 
well being. 

We marched into Memphis day before yesterday ; shall 
occupy the city and probably remain for some time. This 
will be the new base of operations. I found a heavy mail 
waiting me, and among my letters was overjoyed to see 
one from you. You may well be sure it was the first I tore 
open to read, and it was read before I had dismounted, 
though I had been in the saddle without food or drink since 
two o'clock in the morning, and it was twelve meridian, 
under as hot a sun as you can conceive it possible for one to 
exist under. The mercury stood at 101° in the shade that 
morning at seven o'clock. The only evil result of that day's 
march, however, so far as I am concerned, is the loss of the 
skin of my nose, which was completely peeled off. I can't 
answer your affectionate letter now, but will do so in a day 
or two, if I can get an hour's leisure. I have been constantly 
on the go, our troops are not 3'et encamped, and as Officer 
of the Day, my duties have been exceedingly onerous. 

I should be glad to come home, but a furlough is a thing 
impossible ; Sherman won't listen to a request even from a 
sick or dying man ; certainly not from one who is at all use- 
ful in the service. Even if it could be obtained, I should 
not like to take a furlough now for many reasons. I am in 
for the war and the war will be a long one. 

Memphis has been i n opulent city, laid out in magnificent 
proportions, containing superb houses, elegant grounds, etc. 
The people who are left are almost all " Secesh." The 
males between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years are 



232 Thomas Kilby Smith 

ordered off ; to-morrow is their last day of grace ; consterna- 
tion, of course, prevails. The headquarters are besieged 
with ladies asking protection for themselves and families ; a 
very large proportion of them are wives of officers in the 
Confederate army. They are all bitter as snakeroot, but 
nevertheless demand, not ask, that protection their natural 
protectors were unable or unwilling to give. 

Few of these can yet realize that war has now commenced 
in right good earnest ; that hereafter desolation and havoc 
will follow the wake of our army. Heretofore we have 
preached peace, and sought with the inhabitants of the 
country through which we have marched, even upon the 
battlefield, to cultivate friendly relations, warring only with 
the men-at-arms, fighting to-day with the owners of the 
property which we detail forces to protect to-morrow. Our 
famishing and thirsty soldiers as they toiled under the burn- 
ing sun in the summer days' march have been prevented 
almost at the point of the bayonet from assuaging their thirst 
at the roadside well, from pulling an onion from the garden 
or seizing an apple from the bough on the premises of the 
men armed and after their heart's best blood. Now this will 
all be changed. We shall " burn, sink, and destroy ! " We 
shall teach these ingrates that we can punish with a rod of 
iron, that we can not only meet and vanquish them on the 
field, but that we have the nerve and the will to sweep them 
and all they hold dear clean off from the face of the earth. 

I hear they are most thoroughly panic-stricken in Cincin- 
nati ; that the enemy have been encamped at Florence, only 
nine miles in front, and that they have some reasons to ex- 
pect a raid. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp near Memphis, Aug. 8, 1862. 



Your letter of the ist inst. has just been received. I can- 
not understand why eight days should be consumed in the 
transit of mail matter when the individual requires only two 
to pass over the same ground. The army, however, is 



Letters 233 

always scolding the mails, and perhaps without reason. We 
ought to be thankful for any intelligence, however tardy. 

Our tents are pitched in pleasant places near the city, 
plenty of shade and pure water. The health of my men 
would improve if they would practise self-denial in food ; but 
the temptation in the shape of green corn, fresh fruit and 
vegetables is too much for their frail nature to withstand. 
If I can get them safely through September, they will be in 
good training for a fall and winter campaign. My own 
diarrhoea has never left me— I suppose never will. I have 
lost flesh and strength, but I do not sufier save from the in- 
convenience and loss of rest at night. Sometimes it is 
checked slightly, but I think it is chronic and beyond the 
power of medicine. No furloughs or leaves of absence are 
granted from this division of the army, on account of sick- 
ness or for any other cause. I have asked furloughs for 
officers and men who have died, and whose lives, I am 
assured by the surgeons, might have been saved by change 
of air and alleviation from the miseries of the camp, but 
never with any success. I would not ask a furlough for 
myself, I would not take one if ofiered ; but it would be 
worse than useless to ask. It will be long before I shall see 
family or friend. This hard, pitiless war will never come to 
an end in my lifetime. I^ast night three of my officers, who 
were badly wounded at Shiloh, returned. Two of them' were 
shot very severely, one having his kidney, lung, and liver 
pierced with a Minie-ball ; and yet, strange to say, he is here 
to-day reported for duty, while men who got only flesh 
wounds died. I thought they would not return to their 
regiment, but they felt the peculiar fascination that few are 
able to resist. Their welcome by their old comrades in arms 
was very affecting. Strong men embraced and wept. Those 
who had stood shoulder to shoulder during the two terrible 
days of that bloody battle, were hooped with steel, with bands 
stronger than steel ; and those who might have been dis- 
charged, the scars of whose honorable wounds were yet raw, 
forsook friends and the comforts of home to come to their 
regiment, to the society of their companions. This is the 
great impelling feeling, though duty, patriotism, and 



234 Thomas Kilby Smith 

" death's couriers, Fame and Honor, called them to the field 
again. ' ' No officer whose honor is dear to him can be away 
now ; absence from post is a burning shame and will be a 
lasting disgrace. 

It is not probable that Sherman will be ordered to Vicks- 
burg for some time, if at all. Meanwhile the drill and the 
discipline of the troops is rigidly enforced. Brig. -Gen. 
Morgan L,. Smith, under whose command the "54th" is 
brigaded, is a martinet almost to tyranny. 

I do not deem it beyond the range of the probabilities of 
this war that Cincinnati be attacked. Buell will have his 
hands full to prevent it. The city would be a tempting 
prize to soldiers. 

You had better have an eye on this matter in the making 
of your fall arrangements. I don't want to write that which 
will give you uneasiness. I do not regard it as at all certain 
that Bragg would push his columns up between Curtis and 
Buell ; but it is certain that there is a good deal of disaffec- 
tion in Kentucky. If Richmond is evacuated — and disease 
and want of commissary stores may compel this — then des- 
perate men in large guerilla bands may precipitate them- 
selves upon a city so far as I know undefended. The South 
is a united people ; they have over one million and a half of 
fighting men, their soldiers are better drilled and better dis- 
ciplined than ours, they are better armed and fight as well, 
and above all it is far easier for them to keep their regiments 
filled up to the maximum number, than it is for us. Every 
man, who is able to fight, is willing to fight. The women, 
the children, the old, the feeble, take pride in the army, and 
cheer those on to glorj' whom they think are winning it in 
the defence of their homes, their firesides, and the heritage 
of their fathers. 

I saw a sweet little girl the other day the very image of 
Bettie and very much like her in manners ; of course I 
courted and petted her, notwithstanding she was a most bit- 
ter little " Secesh." It was most amusing to hear her phi- 



Letters 235 

lippics, but I could not help loving her for Bettie's sake, and 
the little witch, as evidence that I had won her favor, though 
a " Yank," came with her father to my camp. She is the 
first child I have spoken to for six long months, if I make 
an exception of the occasional pickaninny, an insect with 
which this sunny South abounds. It was very amusing on 
the march to see whole flocks of them, generally nude, by 
the roadside in the care of some ancient mother of the herd. 

Enclosed please find an effusion from the pen of Col. Tom 
Worthington, a brother of the General, with whom I have 
become quite intimate ; the lines were almost if not quite 
impromptu, written and handed me just after the battle, 
though since, I believe, published. The allusion to the 
azalia is very happy ; the whole air was redolent with their 
perfume on the day of the battle, and more than once I 
caught a handful of them, while my horse was treading 
among the dead. 

This afternoon I am invited to a grand review of the 8th 
Missouri, and to meet all the field officers of the division at 
General Sherman's headquarters. Within two or three days 
we present General Sherman with a sword, and I am ex- 
pected to make the presentation speech at a grand dinner, at 
which I suppose nearly all the ofiicers, certainly all the field 
and staff, will be present. As I remarked of General Smith, 
so Sherman is a martinet, but he is a soldier, every inch, 
and as brave as they make them. I fought by his side all 
day from seven o'clock in the morning till dark on Monday, 
sat by him when his horse was shot, and saw his hand grazed 
by a cannon ball. He 's every inch a soldier and a gentle- 
man and a chieftain. Colonel Worthington don't like him, 
which is strange, for they are both West Pointers, but the 
fact is the Colonel is a little jealous that he has not a higher 
command. 

My prince of horses, Bellfounder, is in splendid health, 
his neigh rings out long and loud whenever he sees me. 
You shall ride him if he ever gets home. 



236 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Camp near Memphis, Aug, 14, 1862. 
• •••••« 

Major Fisher of my regiment has been appointed Assistant 
Provost Marshal of Memphis, which leaves me with the 
whole regiment on my hands without assistance, and of 
course adds to my cares and responsibilities. 

Camp near Memphis, Aug. 14, 1862. 

Your letter of the 8th inst. was received two days ago, and 
just while I was preparing to act as Chief of General Sher- 
man's Staff in a grand review to be made of Hurlbut's di- 
vision. To-day our brigade, which is considered the crack 
brigade of the army here, is to be received ; in this I have, 
of course, to lead my regiment. 

Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Ine., 

Camp near Memphis, Aug. 20, 1862. 

My DEAR Mother : 

Our army here is now being thoroughly disciplined. 
Parades and reviews are of daily occurrence. On Satur- 
day, as Chief of Staff to General Sherman, I witnessed a fine 
review of General Hurlbut's division. Yesterday' our own 
brigade was reviewed. It is considered the most soldierly 
body of troops in the Army of the Tennessee. Our Brigadier- 
General is a terrible martinet, but well calculated to make 
good soldiers. I assure you, a parade of such a brigade as 
ours is an imposing sight. 

I send you my " carte." Can you recognize any likeness 
to the little whitehead who clung round your knee lang 
syne? He 's had some rough encounters with the world 
that opened so bright upon him, since those days at Dor- 
chester. The image of his young mother is ever before his 
mind, her dear bright eyes still gaze into his. He dreams 
he still feels the impress of her kiss. 




COLONEL THOMAS KILBY SMITH, 

MEMPHIS, 1862. 



Letters 237 

Camp on He;rnando Road, near Memphis, 

Sept. 13, 1862. 
My dear Wife : 

I have just returned from an expedition into Mississippi 
made by our brigade, upon forced marches every day. "We 
have had some skirmishing with guerilla bands, have killed 
ten, wounded a large number, and taken nearly an hundred 
prisoners, with mules, horses, and other property. I rode 
many miles for the past four days, have been almost con- 
stantly in the saddle, day and night. I find your very affec- 
tionate letter of the 3d inst. and the beautiful poem you have 
written about the battle. I will reply to your letter at length 
to-morrow ; now have just time to acknowledge its receipt 
and say I am well, for you are doubtless worried at not hear- 
ing from me. There is a good deal of excitement about 
Memphis. We are expecting reinforcements. I have 
changed my camp some four miles from where my last letter 
was dated. The locality is a better one. 

Do not suppose I am troubled about military matters ; 
your letter goes to show an anxiety about me in that regard. 
If I cannot have a brigade of my own, I had rather be bri- 
gaded under Morgan L-. Smith than any other man I know 
of, though he is a terribly strict disciplinarian. The brigade 
has a great reputation for drill, marching and fighting quali- 
ties, and is really the crack brigade of the Southwestern 
army. 

I have unlimited confidence in Sherman, who is a great 
man and a great general ; therefore I am as well situated as 
one can hope to be in the volunteer service. It is only in 
the regular army where ofl&cers can hope for comfort or re- 
lief from the thousand vexations and annoyances conse- 
quent to a lack of thorough discipline. 

Your lines are very beautiful ; one or two lines not to be 
excelled. I wish we could collect all you have written. Do 
you know where a copy can be had of the lines to your 
grandmother ? 



■0 



8 TJiomas Kilby Smith 



Camp on Hernando Road, near IMemphis, 

Sept. 13, 1S62. 
My dear Mother : 

I have just returned from a long march — an expedition 
made by our entire brigade with four hundred cavalr}- and 
an eight-gun battery, for the purpose of destroying certain 
important railroad bridges and tressel work, and wnth the 
hope of drawing Breckinridge and his forces into a battle. 
We had considerable skinnishing with guerilla bands, killed 
ten that we know of, probably more, wounded quite a num- 
ber, and brought in some eighty or ninety prisoners. We 
passed through the town or citj-, as they would call it here, 
of Hernando ; encamped there two nights. We took much 
property, horses, mules, etc. ; but one man killed and a few 
wounded. 

For the past four da^-s, I have spent twenty hours out of 
each twenty-four in the saddle, and for the past week have 
not had my coat, boots, or spurs ofif till this morning. 

We are infonned since my return that Stanton has re- 
signed and has been succeeded by Halleck. I had hopes of 
Stanton and that he would recollect me. I shall have to 
wait now a good while : volunteer colonels will have to stand 
back for West Point lieutenants. I am in receipt of two 
New York papers, Herald and Times, for which I am much 
obliged. There is a good deal of excitement in Memphis at 
this time. The whole Southwest is ablaze. 



C.\MP ON Hernando Road, near Memphis, 

Sept. 14, 1S62. 

I mentioned that I had just returned from an expedition 
into Mississippi in my letter of yesterday. The rebels had 
become troublesome south of this cit}', on the route of the 
Tennessee and Mississippi Railroad, and our brigade marched 
in that direction to check their depredations and to seek an 
engagement. We marched abotit two thousand strong — one 
thousand three hundred and fifty infantrj', fotir hundred 



Letters 239 

cavalry, and a battery of artillery. Our cavalry in advance 
came up with the enemy on Monday and had a sharp 
skirmish, driving them back some two and a half miles. I 
have ascertained since my letter of yesterday, in which I 
make a somewhat different statement, that forty-one of the 
enemy were killed and between seventy and eighty wounded ; 
a number of prisoners and horses were taken. We had one 
man killed and four wounded. The cavalry afterwards 
entered Senatobia, an important point on the railroad, and 
burned the depot and cars that were there, scattering various 
guerilla bands they met on the road there and back. Mean- 
while, our main body destroyed the railroad bridge over 
Coldwater, an important and expensive structure, tore up 
the railroad track and destroyed all communication with the 
enemy and Hernando. General Sherman pronounces the 
expedition one of the most successful and best conducted 
that has been made during the campaign and best calculated 
to check the operations of the enemy. 



Headquarters 54TH Regt. O. V. Inf., 

Camp on Hernando Road, near Memphis, 

Sept. 23, 1862. 
My dear Mother : 

This anniversary ' will be remembered by you and me, 
probably the most interested parties to the transaction it 
commemorates. As the matter is unimportant to all the 
world and the rest of mankind, perhaps at this late day the 
less we say about it the better. I know you are thinking 
of me, wherever you are, or whatever you may be doing at 
this very moment, and by the present writing you will be 
assured of being in my thoughts. 

There are one or two facts in my history connected with 
the month of September. All the important changes that 
have transpired to me date in that month, and on the 23d I 
am never at home. I have no recollection of passing that 
day with my family for very many years, back even to my 
childhood, always travelling like the Wandering Jew. 

' His forty-second birthday. 



/ 



240 Thomas Kilby Smith 

It is a good while since I have heard from you or from 
wife. I suppose mail communication is in a great way sus- 
pended. I write letters with some anxiety. From the 
publication in the Commercial of 19th inst., I imagine wife 
was in Cincinnati at that time. I shall expect soon to hear 
of your being with her. The fate of that city is not yet de- 
cided. I think it rests with Buell. If Bragg outgenerals 
him, Cincinnati will be burned. We have exaggerated 
rumors of McClellan's success ; I cannot yet believe them. 
Halleck has massed his forces and hurled them upon Lee's 
army in retreat. Massing forces is Halleck' s forte. I do 
not see now the annihilation of the enemy's Army of the 
Potomac. That will have a strange effect upon this war. 
Then we shall begin to change front. I expect stirring 
times here in two or three weeks, not sooner. My pickets 
had a little brush with guerillas last night. Guerillas are 
utterly contemptible ; they possess neither honor nor courage. 
Save in light affairs of this character and one expedition into 
Mississippi, some account of which I gave in a recent letter 
to dear Helen, my time has been actively occupied during 
my sojourn here in perfecting the drill of my regiment and 
fitting it for active service in the field. 

Memphis, as I have remarked in former letters, has been 
a very opulent city. The centre of a vast system of railways, 
favorably situated upon the banks of the Mississippi, with a 
splendid landing ; a great mart for cotton, the staple of a 
widespread and most fertile bottom in Arkansas, Mississippi, 
and Tennessee, by which it is immediately surrounded ; 
wealth in actual cash, gold, and bullion from European 
factors has flowed in upon its inhabitants with continuous 
tide and now is evidenced by luxury and taste in the build- 
ing, furnishing, and adorning of their residences and public 
buildings. The people I have met are sufficiently well edu- 
cated and refined. All of course are intensely Southern. 
There are to-day, perhaps, six hundred Union people in 
Memphis to six thousand secessionists dyed in the wool. Its 
climate is delightful and the country about is remarkable for 
its adaptability to the cultivation of fruits and flowers. It is 



Letters 241 

historical ; from here De Soto saw for the first time the wide 
and turbid stream of the Father of Waters. Thus far through 
swamp and wilderness he had forced his weary way in search 
of gold and precious stones. Fort Pickering, now manned 
and armed for offence and defence, was the site of his first 
camp. Immortalized by our Western artist Powell in his 
painting which fills the last panel that was vacant in the 
rotunda of the Capitol, its name will perhaps go down to 
posterity as the scene of bloody conflict during the civil war. 
Our history now is red in blood, and scarlet dyed are the 
sins of the nation. I have just been reading Governor 
Ramsey's proclamation and message to the legislature of 
Minnesota. The Northwestern Indians are up in arms to 
renew the massacres that chilled us with horror in the 
annals of the early pioneers. Again is the reeking scalp 
torn from the living victim's head. Again is the unborn 
child torn quivering from its mother's womb and cast 
quivering upon her pulseless heart ; again is the torch ap- 
plied to the settler's cabin, the forts and blockhouse be- 
sieged by the ruthless savage, the tomahawk and rifle ever 
busied in their murderous work. Many hundreds of men, 
children, and women are known to have been butchered in a 
manner too sickening and revolting to write about, and the 
homes of thirty thousand made desolate. 

Distracted by civil war in which no issue is fairly made, 
harassed by the savage tribes in the front and rear, England 
only waiting for a salient point — the Republic totters. What 
and when will be the end ? 

I did myself the pleasure of copying for Helen's benefit 
some lines of wife, which yG\x have doubtless received and 
read ere this. They are the reflex of her pure mind — chaste, 
sweet in expression, and the surcharge of her agonized spirit. 
" Waiting, watching, and weeping, her heart's blood is run- 
ning to tears. ' ' God bless her and you ; verily the evil daj^s 
are upon us. ' * When the brother delivers up the brother 
to death, and the father the child ; and the children rise up 
against their parents and cause them to be put to death." 

We hear of wars and rumors of wars. . . . It is woe 

unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck 

16 



242 Thomas Kilby Smith 

in these days. My poor wife ! how often I think of these 
prophecies as I reflect upon her condition, charged with the 
sole care of those five helpless children. God help and sus- 
tain her in this hour of trial. You can now better under- 
stand, and perhaps better than ever before, why I wanted 
my family, all I have on earth, to love to be together to 
mutually sustain each other. No property in times like 
these, however vested, is safe. I could tell you of heart- 
rending instances of deprivation of property and its conse- 
quences here at the South. We are passing through a great 
revolution, truly ; " the end is not yet." 

As servants of the government, we do not know where 
next we may be called to perform service. My impression 
is that our corps will be retained in the valley of the Missis- 
sippi and do battle to keep open its navigation. We shall 
probably take Vicksburg and garrison the principal towns on 
the Mississippi to the Gulf and up the Red River. The 
events of the next few weeks will determine, I do not expect 
to be inactive long. I hope not. My horses are waxing fat 
and neigh impatiently in their stalls. I prefer the field to 
the camp. 

Camp on Hernando Road, near Memphis, 

2 o'clock a.m,, Sept, 15, 1S62. 

My dear Sister : 

At eleven o'clock last night as I was about to " turn in " 
an orderly came dashing up through the rain with despatches 
advising me that the Brigadier-General commanding had re- 
liable information that our pickets were to be attacked this 
night or morning, rather, by the enemy's cavalry, and order- 
ing me to double my picket guard. Being some distance 
from our main army and my outside pickets being three miles 
distant from me, and having a six-gun battery under my 
command attached to my regiment, after giving my orders 
and disposing of my forces, I feel indisposed for sleep and 
know not how I can better put in the residue of the night 
than by writing to my dear sister Helen, whose affectionate 
letter of the 8th inst, with inclosure is now before me, being 
this day received. 



Letters 243 

I send you a picture of General Sherman and staff, num- 
bered thus — 

1. Lieutenant Taylor, 5th Ohio Cavalry, Aide-de-Camp. 

2. Major J. H. Hammond, Assistant Adjutant-General. 

3. Captain Dayton, 6th Ohio Infantry, Aide-de-Camp. 

4. Major Taylor, of Taylor's Battery, Chief of Artillery. 

5. Capt. J. Condict Smith, Division Quartermaster. 

6. General Sherman. 

7. Col. Thos. Kilby Smith, of 54th Ohio Inf. Zouaves. 

8. Captain Shirk, U.S.N., Commander of gunboat Lex- 
ington, which threw the shells at Shiloh. 

9. Major Hartshorne, Division Surgeon. 

10. Col. W. H. H. Taylor, 5th Ohio Cavalry. 

11. Capt. James McCoy, 54th Ohio Inf. Zouaves, Aide- 
de-Camp. 

12. Major Sanger, 55th Illinois Inf., Aide-de-Camp. 
These, with two exceptions, were together and did service 

at the battle of Shiloh ; the names of some of them will adorn 
the pages of history. The Quartermaster looms up among 
them like Saul among the prophets, a head and shoulder 
above the rest. He stands six feet four and a half inches 
high in his stocking feet, and I have a private in the ranks 
in my regiment who is three inches taller than he. 

Tell mother she need not be alarmed about Sherman's 
sanity ; his mind is sound, his intellect vigorous. He is a 
man for the times. His enemies are seeking to destroy him. 
The whole article she sends is replete with falsehood. No 
city in the Union has a better police, is more accurately gov- 
erned than Memphis. It is sufiicient for me to say to mother 
that the whole article is false from beginning to end. Tell 
dear mother I will write her shortly ; that meanwhile, to be 
of good cheer. The game of war is fluctuating — their turn 
now, ours perhaps to-morrow. 

And all night long I have waited and watched ; the gray 
dawn is now streaking the eastern sky. No warning shot 
from the picket guard, all is still, all quiet, as though smiling 
peace still blessed the land. I have written and paced the 
sentry's beat at intervals ; now sounds the reveille. The 
stirring fife and prompt sharp sound of the drum break upon 



244 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the morning air. The camp is all aroused. My labor for 
the night is done. Its result a copy of verses and not very 
interesting letter. It will bring proof, however, that I have 
thought of you, that for the whole night at least you have 
been in my thoughts till dawn. 



I don't think that Cincinnati is in immediate danger from 
Smith ; he will probably retire. His mission was to watch 
Morgan at the Cumberland Gap. It was so easy a thing to 
do, that he made his advance farther than was intended. 
Bragg is the general to watch. He and Buell will, I think, 
it is likely, have a big battle. If he is victorious, good-by, 
Cincinnati. Anyhow I must think she is a doomed city. 



Camp on Hernando Road, near Me;mphis, 

Oct. i6, 1862. 

My dear Wife : 

A stupid publication in the Commercial of the 13th inst. 
causes me anxiety lest you should be made to suffer in the 
belief that I am the interesting individual referred to. For 
good or for evil the newspapers are bound to misspell my 
name, to destroy my identity, to take away, as far as possi- 
ble, my individuality, and now they propose to publish me 
wounded. I think, however, your good sense will enable 
you to locate me right. The number of my regiment, my 
brigade and division under General Sherman will enable my 
family to place me. There is no telegraph from this point 
or I would telegraph you. I have just returned from a re- 
connoissance into Mississippi. We met no enemy and had 
not even a skirmish. I commanded the expedition. Tem- 
porarily my command is somewhat more independent than 
it was and I have had artillery assigned to m}^ command in 
connection with my regiment. My duties are very active. 
The weather is cooler, and my health improving. If we 
should have frost it would be everything to me. 

They had a big fight at Corinth. Many of my personal 



Letters 245 

friends have gone under, among them Jim Jackson, formeriy 
member of Congress from Kentucky. I knew him intimately 
in Washington and renewed my acquaintance with him be- 
fore Corinth in the field. His was a gallant, noble spirit. 
God ! how many of them are gone, to " barter breath for 
fame." That was a bloody, bloody fight while it lasted ; I 
mean the dash on Corinth. Rosecrans has immortalized 
himself He 's a splendid soldier. I can't tell what our 
movements will be ; Sherman knows as little of them as any 
one ; coming events will determine. I do not think we shall 
be marched from this point for some weeks, unless upon ex- 
peditions to return. 

I am writing as usual hastily, to save the mail ; the fact 
is, I eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride, talk, write in a hurry. I 
am hurr>ang through life ; as poor father used to say, " I 
was born in a hurry and shall die in a hurry." Time never 
sped so fast with me. 



Camp near Memphis, Oct. 23, 1862. 
My Dear Daughters : 

I must address you together as I would talk to you. 
Would to God that I could see you and talk to you ; yet, 
perhaps, it is better I should not. I should love you too 
well and you would be taken away from me, or the petty 
cares of every day would make me appear less tender in my 
manner than I am in heart. You will always love me, I 
know, whatever distance or time separates. 

I am in very great trouble and grief this morning, and can- 
not write as cheerfully as I could wish. My favorite horse 
I' Bell " was stolen from me two days ago and to me his loss 
is irreparable. He is the best and handsomest horse I ever 
saw. In all my experience of horses, whether belonging to 
others or myself, I have never known his equal. He had 
improved very much the past year, even amid the vicissi- 
tudes of the campaign, and had become thoroughly trained 
in all his duties. He was the horse par excellence of the 



246 Thomas Kilby S^nith 

army, in whom all ojQ&cers and men alike of all the difierent 
regiments and brigades took equal pride. No one seemed 
to grudge or envy me the ownership of him. He was a 
creature of beauty that seems to be a joy to all. He knew 
me and loved me like a child, and would always neigh and 
stretch out his neck to be fondled whenever I approached 
him, and rejoiced when I mounted him. He carried me 
through both days at Shiloh and many a skirmish since over 
the long marches under the burning summer sun, alwaj'S 
with high courage, gallant and enduring, never complaining 
for food or water, though often deprived of both. I have 
slept many and many a night under a tree with his bridle in 
my hand. I believe under God's mercy I owe my life to 
him. Money could not have bought him from me, nor 
friendship parted us, and now to lose him in this pitiful way 
is almost more than I can bear. If he had fallen in battle I 
would have accepted his loss as the fate of war, but to be 
stolen, disfigured, branded, passed from hand to hand like a 
common pad, I could almost cry like a very baby when I 
think of it. He was never sold, his owner kept him from a 
foal till he came to my possession and he would recognize no 
one but me for his master. One day during a lull in the 
storm of battle (it was at Russell House, the last engagement 
I was in) I had a presentiment he would be killed. Shot 
and shell had fallen around us, and partly for that presenti- 
ment, partly in abstraction and rest, I pulled some hairs 
from his mane and plaited them to keep as a memento, if he 
should go under. That little braid is all I have left of the 
proudest game horse in America.' Do you see, my dear 
daughters, I am not in the vein to write you a very pleasant 
letter to-day, though the weather is delightful, the air 
balmy, the woods still green, though the leaves are falling, 
ripened but not frosted. It is Indian summer, but without 
the tints that gild the forest in Ohio. There is a little smoky 
haze in the atmosphere and a peculiar rustle of the leaves 
and grass, that tells the autumn is well-nigh over, yet I am 
told that warm weather here runs nearly into Christmas. 

' He was subsequently recovered. 



Letters 247 

Camp near Mrmphis, Nov. ii, 1862. 



My dear Wifk 



My life is now in comparison to what it has been some- 
what monotonous, though full of daily incidents that a year 
ago would have been excitement enough for any one, a cir- 
cumstance then that would have caused comment for a 
month, is now passed over without a second thought. I^ast 
night one of my pickets shot a soldier of the 6th Missouri who 
was attempting to escape from guard. He was a splendidly 
formed man, and as I looked at him this morning, stripped 
for washing before burial, shot directly through the body 
with one of our large Minie-balls, and saw the little uncon- 
cern of all about him — even he who shot him — I began to 
realize better than ever before how valueless human life has 
become ; within an hour the man was buried out of sight and 
the thing quite forgotten. 

It is Indian summer weather, and were it not for the dust, 
different from anything in my experience in the way of dust, 
would be delightful ; I am in the saddle the greater part of 
the time and keep three horses pretty well tired down. I 
never thought I could ride so much without fatigue. lyast 
Friday I was Officer of the Day and rode all day until eleven 
o'clock at night, came back to camp, changed horses, made 
the grand round and did not dismount till half-past five 
o'clock in the morning. That day I rode twenty-two and a 
half hours out of the twenty-four, and then taking only an 
hour's nap, reported for duty. I know I rest better in the 
saddle than in the chair, and almost as well as lying down. 

I think I shall be in good trim for a winter campaign. We 
shall take the field probably in about three weeks. The 
other day the field officers of our brigade surprised General 
Sherman by calling in a body and presenting him with 
sword, sash, belt, etc. — presentation and acceptance very 
afiecting. We were all together at the plains of Shiloh. 
After presentation invited him to wine supper at hotel ; 
speeches, talk, etc., and a good time generally. Mrs. Sher- 



248 Thomas Kilby Smith 

man, with the General, called upon me this morning, and 
indeed just left as I sit down to write. She is a very pleasant 
woman ; the more I see of her the better I like her. She 
often comes to my camp and both she and the general are 
very hospitable to me ; indeed, I believe I eat at their table 
oftener than at my own. There are several ladies residing 
not far from my camp, and one in Memphis, with whom I 
have become acquainted, and at whose house I often visit. 
It is agreeable to me, as I mess quite alone. 



There was a grand Union demonstration in the city yester- 
day — a procession and the theatre thrown open, and girls 
dressed in white and mounted on a car to be dragged through 
the streets and one representing a goddess of liberty, who 
ought to be chained to a rock and kept there the balance of 
her days, and a grand band and flags fluttering, and 
speeches made from the stage by distinguished citizens and 
military men, and a hurrah, and the General with his stafif 
and me on his right hand, caprioling and cavorting through 
the streets and standing on balconies, with waving hats and 
dancing plumes and brass buttons glittering in the sun, and 
new uniforms covered with dust and other free soil, and 
many little ragged boys and small girls with unkempt hair 
and the backs of their gowns gaping wide, and " the Union, 
it must be preserved," and General Washington, looking 
like a superannuated ass with his ears cropped close, and 
" Bsto Perpetua " and " flag of the free heart's hope and 
home," and divers other strange devices, all done up in 
white cotton and carried about on sticks by sundry patriots 
at the remarkably low price of two dollars a day and whiskey 
thrown in, and a major and invited guests and the presenta- 
tion of a Star Spangled Banner, long may it wave, by patri- 
otic ladies of Memphis to Union Club, and all the rest of it 
done up in a rag after the approved style of Plymouth Rock, 
and the 4th of July and the 8th of January, and Washing- 
ton's birthday. Vox populi, vox Dei. 



Letters 240 

Camp near Memphis, Nov. 15, 1S62. 

I have abundance of good food, but only take one meal a 
day, and that a very light one. This morning one of my 
lady friends in the neighborhood sent me in a most luxurious 
breakfast, a roasted rabbit with jelly sauces, and all that sort 
of thing, flanked by four quails with three or four different 
preparations of bread and other little matters, and after the 
whole thing had been elaborately spread upon a nice white 
cloth, I had it all bundled up and sent off as a present to 
Mrs. Sherman. 

I have a great many compliments of this kind and beauti- 
ful flowers sent to me, and all sorts of pleasant messages. 
Last night I passed the evening in company with General 
Sherman at Bishop Otie's, the Episcopal bishop of this 
diocese. He has lovely daughters. One of them enter- 
tained me with charming songs and harp accompaniment 
—a most beautiful girl and very accomplished. 

Camp on Woi,p River, near Memphis, Dec. 14, 1862. 

The papers, I suppose, have told you what we have been 
about. My regiment was the first to cross the Tallahatchie. 
We have marching orders for the i8th, four days to rest and 
get ready, and then for Vicksburg or Jackson, or what God 
pleases. We shall have an active winter campaign. My 
health has been good until within a day or two. I have 
recurrence of the infernal dysentery. I suppose the damp- 
ness in some way strikes upon my bowels, and I could get 
no brandy. Whiskey, and very bad whiskey at that, is all 
we can procure in the army, and it is my abomination. 

Headquarters 54'rH Regt. O. V. Ine., 

On board Steamer " Sunny South," 

Saturday, Dec. 20, 1862. 

I have this moment received your letter enclosing two from 
the children of the 13th Dec. I cannot pretend to make 
answer to them now, for orders have suddenly come and I 



250 Thomas Kilby Smith 

am in all the hurly burly of excitement and embarkation of 
troops — no easy matter. 

This expedition is fraught with great results one way or 
another. We cannot look into futurity. I note by the chil- 
dren's letters all the little household events that so much 
interest you. I am with you in spirit always. Remem- 
ber, dear wife, I am always true to you and my dear chil- 
dren and my darling mother and my sweet sister — you 
are all with me now in spirit as I write, and often — so often 
— with me in the dark hours on the march and the bivouac 
and the excitement of battle. I often think of you as I grasp 
the sword or force the spur. Many a bound has Bell made 
when my heel, responsive to my heart, has goaded his pant- 
ing side, — but enough of all this trouble. I can't write now. 
The sweet music of the band is pealing forth, the landing is 
crowded with forty thousand troops and all their parapher- 
nalia — transportation, munitions of war. — All is haste, yet 
haste in order. Memphis has been kind to me. Do you be- 
lieve, I have more friends in Memphis to-day, outside of the 
army, I mean, than I have in Cincinnati. It is so, and I 
have the most substantial proofs of their friendship. Houses, 
servants, equipages, everything of luxury has been forced 
upon me. I have been the favored guest. All this I '11 tell 
you of, or write you some other time. Some of these friends 
will be lifelong to me, and in times like these that is not 
saying much. 

Write me to follow the regiment, though I fear it will be 
a good while before I hear from you or you from me, and 
now I can't say to horse, but to steamboat, brave gallants 
all, death's couriers, Fame and Honor, call us to the field 
again. 

On board Steamer " Sunny South," 

At mouth of Yazoo River, Dec. 26, 1S62. 

It has been usual with me, before going into battle, to write 
to you, and almost as usual when I have come out of battle 



Letters 251 

unscathed, as heretofore has been my fate, to destroy the 
letters so written. This letter I shall commit to transporta- 
tion immediately after it is prepared and shall be unable to 
withdraw it in any event that may occur. The public prints 
will have stated so much relative to the expedition of which 
my command forms a part as to make it unnecessary for me 
to comment. With such vague knowledge as I possess of 
the movements and position of the enemy, unless he capitu- 
lates, I believe we shall have a desperate fight and the 
chances are even that I shall fall. We must take Vicksburg, 
if at all, by storm, unless it is surrendered. 

Christmas day, yesterday, was warm ; this morning, at 
breakfast, the same old gray-coated housefly that I used to 
stab on the window pane, when a boy, came to share my 
plate. I have doffed my coat and vest ; it is decidedly warm. 
We are really in Dixie, seventeen hundred miles away from 
you. The land of the cotton and the cane, orange groves 
and myrtle. Mayhap I '11 tell you of it in time to come, of 
the long waving moss, and the cypress. Rapid and turbid 
and broad and deep rolls the Father of Waters onward to 
the ocean, the eternal waters. 



Headquarters Fourth Brigade, Second Drv., 
" MiivUKEN's Bend," Louisiana, January 3, 1863. 

I seize a moment to write you a brief letter, for I know how 
anxious you all must be about me. The papers, who know 
everything, and more too, will have apprised you long before 
you receive this letter that we have had a fight, that we have 
met the enemy and that they are not ours ; and you will 
imagine, of course, that I am captured, wounded and killed, 
but by the grace of God I 've come out of the ruins un- 
scathed. I went under fire Saturday evening, about six 
o'clock, 27th ult. ; was in raging battle Sunday and Mon- 
day ; and Sunday, very early in the action, Gen. Morgan L. 
Smith was shot pretty badly in the hip and had to go off the 
field. I think he '11 die. By General Sherman's order, Gen- 



252 Thomas Kilby Smith 

eral Stuart assumed command of the division and I of the 
brigade, but Stuart being unwell I virtually had command 
of the whole division during the fight of Sunday, After the 
first part of the affair was over, Gen. A. J. Smith, as ranking 
officer, took command, I had ten regiments and three bat- 
teries of sixteen guns before Smith came. My men behaved 
splendidly, especially in our own regiment, which, however, 
suffered a good deal, nineteen killed and wounded ; my best 
captain badly wounded. Our loss is pretty heavy, but the 
enemy must have suffered terribly. I am now in command 
of the old brigade, composed of the 54th Ohio, 55th Illinois, 
57th Ohio, 83d Indiana, and 127th Illinois, with two fine bat- 
teries. The 83d Indiana is a noble regiment, commanded 
by Colonel Spooner, of Lawrenceburgh ; he knows your 
father well. I led his regiment under their first fire myself 
and can testify to their gallantry. I suppose the Adminis- 
tration will have too much to do to think of the promotion 
of so insignificant and humble an individual as me, but it is 
pretty hard to take the responsibility of commanding bri- 
gades without the rank. Yet this is the second big fight in 
which I 've been compelled to it, to say nothing of minor 
skirmishes. My own little regiment is a brick ; she '11 follow 
me to hell at the word go. Never falters, never complains. 
We lay in that swamp, among the mud-turtles and alligators, 
a week, and short of rations, and not the first man whimpered. 
I had a fellow shot through the hand, shattering it and maim- 
ing him for life ; the ball broke the stock of his rifle, and in- 
stead of complaining about his hand, he went hunting about 
for another gun, cursing the enemy for breaking his ; how- 
ever, all these incidents of battle are very uninteresting to 
you and it is really wonderful how soon we forget them. 
There is a party of officers sitting now at my right hand, 
laughing and talking and playing cards, whose lives, twenty- 
four hours ago, were not worth a rush, who have been in the 
imminent and deadly breach, who have lost comrades and 
soldiers from their companies, and who this moment are 
entirely oblivious of the fact. 

The weather has been generally warm and pleasant for the 



Letters 253 

past ten or twelve days ; is now warm enough, but it rains 
tremendously. I am told, by those who know the climate, 
that it rains at this season of the year, after it once sets in, 
for six weeks, then storms for six weeks, and then rains 
again. I don't know how this may be, but God preserve us 
from having days of such rain as has been pouring down this. 

They all seem to be looking forward to Christmas, with 
the usual fond anticipations of childhood, and with that they 
wish I could be with them. My Christmas was far away, 
sailing on the Mississippi ; my dinner, for supplies were very 
short, a homely dish of codfish and potatoes minced, with a 
relish of stewed beans. My New Year' s Day was passed under 
the rifle-pits and batteries of the enemy in one of the vast 
swamps of the Mississippi, beneath huge cottonwood and 
sweet gum trees overgrown with the long peculiar moss of 
the country that flaunts in the breeze like funeral weeds. 
On Saturday night, while I was planting a battery, a huge 
owl — one of the species that make these swamps their home 
— flapped his wings right over me, and roosting in the tree 
above my head gave an unearthly screech and wound up 
with a laugh and prolonged ha ! ha ! ha ! so much like the 
utterance of a human being as almost to startle me. I took 
it for an omen. Where will my next Christmas be, where 
shall I make my next New Year's call ? The last has been 
an eventful year to me ; for the past nine months each day 
has been filled with thrilling incidents. I should like a little 
rest. I should like to lie down and be quiet. I should like 
to have some one soothe my brow, and make me feel as if I 
were a little child again. That is a beautiful idea in Scripture, 
where we are taught that all must become as little children, 
before they can enter into the kingdom of heaven. It is 
almost heaven to feel like a little child on earth. But now 
my business is to slay and destroy, to exercise all my intel- 
lect in the destruction of human life and property. 



254 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Headquarters Second Brigade, 
Second Division, Second Army Corps, Army oe Miss., 
On board Steamer " Sunny South," Jan. 7, 1863. 

My dear Mothejr : 

We are on the broad bosom of the Father of Waters, the 
shimmering moonlight streaming bright on the glittering 
waves that dazzle in reflection. I am surrounded by gay 
ofiicers, the jest and the laugh and the song go round, but I 
get a little apart and look out into the night, and alone, with 
no commune for my thoughts save sweet memories of my 
mother. Two natures, two distinct beings seem blended in 
mine. Blood, carnage, and exposure to the elements, the 
dull and dripping rain at night, sapping the creeping marrow 
in my bones, the swamp, the forest, the noontide heat, pro- 
longed endurance of fatigue, and wakeful watching, intimate 
converse with gladiatorial soldiers, the harsh reproof and 
bitter curse (alas, too familiar to my own lips, ) the forcing of 
fierce and maddened spirits to my own will, at times as fierce 
and maddened as theirs, the groan, the imprecation, oftener 
than the prayer of the dying ; the contorted limbs and fixed 
stare of the dead, who have gone to their death at my bid- 
ding — all this, and more, more than I dare to think or to 
write, makes me feel as he must have felt who fell from 
heaven. When plunged in the abyss of reflection, I look 
for my pure, bright angel, with white and fleecy wings, 
hovering above me, her outstretched arms, her beckoning 
hand, her mild and lovely eyes entreating, the mother of my 
early days. I change, even in thought with her. I become 
a child again, like the little child I used to see in some 
of the editions of the " Common Prayer," with the leopard, 
and the lion, and the lamb, that I used to ponder over in- 
stead of listening to the service long years ago, when I sat in 
the quaint old church. The Bible pictures all come back to 
me, the clouds that I used to watch through the open win- 
dows, when the Sunday was pleasant, shaping themselves 
into queer and fanciful forms, when I used to wonder if God 
really sat among them, as upon His throne, and if the little 
cherubims and seraphims, all head and wings as thej^ were 
lined above the pulpit, were really all about him crying 



Letters 255 

aloud, and if he ever spanked them for so doing, and from 
these child dreams I passed to others ; soft and pleasant 
fancies flit through my mind ; music and the bright fireside, 
whispering voices, pure, sweet, holy love, the greeting and 
the parting, the hopes and fears. My spirit changes ; I lean 
over the toprail and gaze into the deep and flowing river, to 
wonder if the scene about me is real, if I may not go to you 
within the hour and lay my head upon your breast and cry 
myself to sleep, with your dear hands clasped in mine. You 
are curious to know where I am and what I have been do- 
ing, and I can only give you commonplace descriptions of 
fleets and the great broad river, martial music, startling the 
wild fowl from the wellnigh deserted shores, the debarkation 
of the army, the bivouac, the attack at night, the fiercer 
conflict that raged for two days, the storming of the ' ' immi- 
nent and deadly breach," the heroism, the slaughter of the 
soldiers, the withdrawal to the transports— all this you will 
hear about in any penny paper, told with all the variations 
far better than my pen can portray, and your heart will 
sicken that such things can be. You will hear that my own 
band acquitted themselves nobly, that nineteen of them bit 
the dust. Stancher followers no man ever had. They say 
I did my devoirs. I don't know. The blood gets into my 
head in the hour of battle and I rage, though men say I am 
cool. The Generals have given me the command of a bri- 
Z^^^- ■ . . If I live, I shall hope to gather laurels ; you 
shall not be ashamed of your son. I have a splendid com- 
mand, five fine regiments of infantry, two full batteries of 
artillery (one of which is the famous Taylor battery of 
Chicago, and the best of the service), and a squadron of 
horse, nearly five thousand men, and the very flower of the 
army. The treason of these Southerners is almost atoned 
for by their dauntless courage ; but if the political generals 
don't succeed in taking my command from me, they shall 
meet a " foeman worthy of their steel " the next time we 
are in battle array. Remember I am writing to my mother, 
and if an indirect trail of egotism or vanity is suffered to 
creep into my plain letters, forgive me. 

De Quincey, in his confessions of opium eating, says, 



256 Thomas Kilby Smith 

speaking of his reveries, ' * Often I used to see after painting 
upon the blank darkness, a sort of rehearsal whilst waking, 
a crowd of ladies, and perhaps a festival and dances. And 
I heard it said, or I said it myself, these are English ladies, 
from the unhappy times of Charles I. These are the wives 
and daughters of those who met in peace, and sat at the 
same tables, and were allied by marriage or by blood ; and 
yet, after a certain day in August, 1642, never smiled upon 
each other again, nor met but in the field of battle ; and at 
Marston Moor, Newberry, or at Naseby cut asunder all ties 
of blood by the cruel sabre, and washed away in blood the 
memory of ancient friendships, ' ' One of my lady friends in 
Memphis gave me a copy, and in casually turning its leaves 
to-day, the quotations seemed strangely apt to the unhappy 
condition of our own bleeding land. 

I have said if the political generals do not take my com- 
mand away, — a batch of them have come down with McCler- 
nand, who, you will perceive by one of the accompanying 
copies, has divided the command with General Sherman ; 
two or three of them are educated military men, and have 
great reputation as soldiers ; an effort was made to place one 
of them over my command ; it may yet be successful, though 
they tell me my popularity with officers and men is very 
great, especially since the last battle ; that some of them de- 
clare they won't fight under another leader, especiallj' under 
an importation. The advent of McClernand is deprecated. 
What the result may be I do not know. General Sherman 
is pretty firm about the matter, now, and I do not think will 
go behind his order. The Administration is treating me 
badly, but " Time at last sets all things even, and if we do 
but watch the hour, ' ' etc. Meanwhile, in my little author- 
ity, you must imagine me as I really am, surrounded by very 
considerable state. My staff consists of an adjutant, two aide- 
de-camps, four clerks, six mounted orderlies, and as many of 
a detachment of cavalry as I may choose to detail for per- 
sonal escort ; this, with my body servants, makes up a very 
considerable menage, and as I retain my own old regiment 
as a body guard, I move with very considerable personal 
force. My colors float very proudly. You know I was 



Letters 257 

always given to the taking on of airs, and thereby exciting 
envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness, which with 
evil speaking, lying, and slandering, are always rife in the 
army. Therefore, there will be many attempts at assassina- 
tion (figuratively speaking, I mean), and these political pets 
will be after me. Whatever I 've got has been literally dug 
and hewed out with the point and edge of the sabre, and the 
devil of it now is that I have to fight front and rear. I had 
a bitter enemy in . . . who is now hors de combat, hav- 
ing been badly shot in the late engagement. I think he '11 
die ; he won't sit on horseback for a year anyhow. I had 
disposed of him pretty effectually before he went under. 

I know of none other now of any consequence, but the 
higher one gets up the more he makes of them. It 's damned 
hard they won't back me at Washington. 

I received a day or two since a very beautiful letter from 
Mrs. Sherman, in which she spoke of " having had the 
pleasure of seeing my very elegant and charming wife and 
mother. ' ' 

I enclose General Stuart's ofl&cial report, which you may 
show to as many friends as you please, though it should not 
be published. Also the order assigning me to command. It 
is not difficult for some people to get the rank of brigadier, 
but the same find it devilish hard to get the command to 
follow the rank, and are proud enough of two meagre regi- 
ments. Mine is a young army ; I am immensely proud of it. 



I won't write myself to ask for promotion. I don't want 
it unless it comes regularly and through my commanding 
general, but inasmuch as I have been clothed with the com- 
mand, and that against the claims of rank ; inasmuch as I 
must assume immense responsibility, expense, and exposure 
without commensurate reward, therefore, I think, I am right 
to urge through my friends for what is only my due. 



«7 



258 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Headquarters Second Brigade, 
Second Division, Fifteenth Army Corps, 
January 14, 1863. 
My dkar Wife : 

You have heard of our last battle, and this will give you 
the assurance of my safety. My brigade behaved splendidly. 
I had ninety-three officers and men killed and wounded ; 
among them, Captain Yeoman, senior captain and in com- 
mand of my old 54th, had his right arm shattered, since 
amputated. The 54th has lost pretty heavily in both the 
last engagements. She 's a gallant little regiment, the men 
true as steel. Indeed, my command is most emphatically a 
fighting brigade. The day was beautiful after we had got 
fairly on the ground, and the spectacle was splendidly im- 
posing as my forces made the charge. You must under- 
stand, that this post, heretofore called " Post Arkansas," but 
christened by the rebels ' ' Fort Hyndman, ' ' is situated upon 
the Arkansas River about sixty miles above the mouth. The 
country about where the Arkansas empties into the Missis- 
sippi is flat and intersected with bayous and cutoifs ; one of 
these leads into White River, and our fleet having rendez- 
voused at the mouth of White River, we sailed up that stream 
to one of these cutoffs, and through that to the Arkansas and 
up the Arkansas to a point three miles below the fort. Here 
we threw troops across the river to intercept reinforcements 
to the enemy, but the main army debarked on the side on 
which the fort is situated, and immediately commenced the 
line of march ; directly as we were en route, the enemy be- 
gan to throw their shell among us, which were returned by 
our gunboats, while the infantry steadily pursued their way. 
About a mile from the point of debarkation, we came upon 
their rifle-pits from which they had recently fled, and where 
we found their fires still burning and cornbread still warm. 
The term rifle-pit means a long ditch or trench, sometimes 
extending for many miles, with a barricade of logs or rails 
or sometimes willows or canes, to hold the earth in position, 
which ought to be in embankment at least four feet broad at 
the top. Behind this embankment, troops stand sheltered 
and in line firing at advancing forces. I make this explana- 
tion because many suppose rifle-pits to be holes in the ground. 



Letters 



259 



Well as we advanced, the enemy abandoned their defences 
and after some slight skirmishing, retreated to the fort, from 
which was now commenced terrific cannonading. A little 
before sundown, other troops having marched around to the 
other side, and rear of the fort, it became my duty to advance 
my brigade to a point immediately in front of one of their bat- 
teries, and having put the troops in line of battle, I was ordered 
to advance them and draw the enemy's fire ; this I did with 
such effect as to cost me fourteen men, among whom was 
Captain Yeoman. Under their fire we lay until nightfall, 
and indeed all night. The next morning, at the break of 
day, we were ordered to the right and to a point nearly in 
front of their main fortifications, and here we lay again, 
under shell, until one o'clock, when I was ordered to storm 
the works ; I wish I could fully explain to you the position 
of the ground, and must make some faint attempt at it, so 
you can appreciate the movements of my troops. The origi- 
nal fort is an hundred years old, and was erected as a defence 
against the Indians ; considered one of the strongest forts in 
the U. S. Being upon a bluff it was supposed to command 
the bend of the river with three immense cannon, throwing 
respectively no-, 100-, and 85-pound shot and shell ; besides 
these, were fifteen pivot guns, having range at any given 
point. These are in the fort itself, a most scientifically con- 
structed work, capable of holding, crowded, fifteen hundred 
men. From one side of this fort, and running we.stwardly, 
was a line of breastwork extending to the river-side some- 
what thus : 




'"^SkTo.o. ^^=.?.^=S?.r.«%5,%=.= ^^« 



^ _ ~cks 

■^ 'X A A A A 

A A A A 
A A /\ 



Now you will imagine my forces lying in the woods to the 
eastward, say half a mile, at the time of my receiving the 



26o Thomas Kilby Smith 

order to storm, and you will imagine all of this ground north 
of the fort and breastworks, a beautiful level plain, a little 
ascending to the fort and spacious enough to admit of three 
regiments in line, and the day to be as bright and beautiful 
as ever gladdened the heart of man, and then imagine, if you 
can, my brigade deploying from the woods just in the rear of 
General Sherman, and firing exactly as you see in the dia- 
gram, with ten brave banners fluttering in the breeze and 
gilded by the sun. Recollect, each regiment has a banner 
and a regimental flag, such a banner as you saw for the 
54th, and the U. S. flag, the stars and stripes. As a miltiary 
display, I never saw it equalled. The troops were formed 
under a perfect hurricane of shot and shell, the breastworks 
and rifle-pits were lined thick with the enemy. We formed, 
advanced, and the oflScial reports will give you the rest. 
Their white flag went up, and I leaped, or got my horse over 
somehow or other. I don't know exactly how, for it was a 
wicked-looking place when I surveyed it the next morning, 
and by order of the commanding general caused four thou- 
sand men, prisoners of war, to ground arms by my order. I 
marshalled them behind the breastworks, while my troops 
stood on the ramparts. The enemy fought most gallantly, 
with a most unparalleled obstinacy. The ground inside the 
fortifications was piled with corpses and strewn thick with 
mangled limbs. The fort was torn all to pieces. The 
muzzle of the i lo-pound gun was shot ofi". A shell of ours 
must have entered the very muzzle. These descriptions you 
will get from the professional writers, and in this instance all 
their word painting will hardly be an exaggeration of the 
truth. 

I have reason to thank God ; for a little while this, to me, 
was the hardest-fought battle I have been in, and the whistle 
of bullets and shrieking of shells are sounds familiar in my 
ears as household words. This, however, is my first real 
action at the point of the bayonet and the muzzle of the gun. 
The feeling is very thrilling ; nobody but the victor on the 
battlefield can appreciate the very madness of joy. I made 
speeches to my new regiments ; the enthusiasm was tremen- 
dous. My old veterans are seasoned and take things quietly, 



Letters 261 

but my 83d Indiana and 127th Illinois were carried up to the 
seventh heaven. 

I suppose it is small and mean, but there is a flattery, an 
adulation, a praise coming from the mouths of these soldiers 
that is very dear to me, and not from them alone. I must 
confess I want it from my country. 

" If we are marked to die, we are enough 
To do our country loss ; and if to live. 
The fewer men the greater share of honor. 
God's will ! I pray thee wish not one man more. 
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold. 
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost ; 
It grieves me not if men my garments wear. 
Such outward things dwell not in my desires ; 
But if it be a sin to covet honor, 
I am the most offending soul alive." 

I must hope for justice to ixiy name, for my dear children's 
sake. If it is tardy in coming, or wholly withheld, I still 
have a satisfaction in the possession of the affection of these 
troops. Ohio in all her counties is well represented. Illi- 
nois and Indiana fairly. Many a family throughout a vast 
breadth will learn who led their brother, or husband, or son, 
at Chickasas, and Vicksburg, or Post Arkansas. 

The conduct of my command was under the immediate eye 
of the generals. My own official report is therefore very 
brief. I would amplify more to you now if I did not suppose 
I should be duplicating what you will probably have read in 
the newspapers, before this letter comes to hand. 

The incidents of our life, thrilling enough in the start, 
soon become an old story ; at least, we think nothing of them 
and suppose they have lost interest to our friends. I might 
tell how, leaving the boat in the expectation of an immediate 
fight, and, therefore, taking nothing with me in the way of 
nourishment or extra clothing, I stood by the head of, or sat 
on, my horse all the night long, the first night out, the shells 
coursing their fiery flight through the darkness and bursting 
over my head ; how eagerly I watched for the streaks of 
dawn ; how all the day I fainted for a drop of water ; how the 



262 Thomas Kilby Smith 

wounded and the dead lay all around me ; of the captures I 
made in the way of prisoners and horses (individually, I 
mean), of the ludicrous scenes in the field — for strange as it 
may seem to you, there is always something to laugh at even 
on the battlefield — but this has been told over and over 
again; I cannot paint pain and anguish, and disappointment 
and dismay and death. They must be seen as I have seen 
them to be understood ; they can never be described. 

We occupied the fort for two days and then re-embarked, 
and, after a little, shall sail down the Arkansas to the mouth, 
where we expect to rendezvous with other troops from 
Grant's army. From thence, I suppose, to Vicksburg, to 
try them again with a much larger force. There '11 be many 
a bloody fight before Vicksburg surrenders, in my judgment ; 
her natural position is immensely strong, and she is thor- 
oughly fortified, well provisioned, and well manned. We 
have vague news from Rosecrans ; nothing, however, relia- 
ble ; if one half of what we hear be true, and his success as 
great as represented, that, joined to our late victory here, 
may have a demoralizing effect upon the Southern army, 
and cause them to capitulate at Vicksburg. Many of the 
soldiers we found here claimed that their time was up, and 
that they would have left in a few days. However that may 
be, one thing is certain, they will dispute every inch of 
ground as long as there is a man among them capable of 
bearing arms. It 's no rebellion, it 's revolution, and a more 
united people you never heard of or read of. Recollect what 
I used to say before the first gun in this war was fired, and 
for many months afterwards, how I used to talk to my 
friends, when they would prate about the South and its re- 
sources — a matter of which they had not the slightest con- 
ception. I propose to fight the fight out, at least as long as 
I have a right hand to draw the sabre. 

I notice in reading my letter over, that I have not ex- 
plained there were two sets of works or rifle-pits, the first 
about a mile and a half beyond the line of fortifications. I 
mean the outside lines, and the first we encountered. They 
were on the north and east. 



Letters 263 

The four thousand prisoners surrendered to me, of whom 
I speak, were only a portion of those within the fortifica- 
tions ; the residue being inside the fort and at other points. 
We took seven thousand prisoners and eight thousand stand 
of arms. 

I speak of the representation in my brigade. I suppose 
there is scarcely a county in Ohio from which some men have 
not been recruited for the old 54th ; the 57th is made up 
from the Hooppole region and the northwest. The 55th and 
127th Illinois were both picked regiments, and came from 
all over the State. The 83d Indiana was recruited near 
Lawrenceburg and the tier of counties bordering Ohio. So 
you see I have gone over good space for infantry. My bat- 
teries are from Chicago and my cavalry from Illinois. 

My boat is under way ; she, of course, is the flagship of 
m}^ fleet of six. It used to be quite a thing when I was a 
bo}^ to command a steamboat. I have the sublime honor of 
commanding six, some of them very heavy, fine boats. Just 
before leaving, I went to pay my wounded a visit. Poor fel- 
lows, I found them in all stages of suffering, but all cheer}-, 
game to the last. My poor Captain Yeoman sat holding up 
his poor stump of an arm. I could hardly keep the tears back. 
The boat was crowded and they were bringing stretchers in 
all the time I was there. I hope the poor fellows will get 
good attention when they arrive at home. The Sanitary 
Commissioners have done nothing for us. The living for 
the wounded and the weak is the hardest that can be imag- 
ined — no wine, no brandy, no nourishing food. The fresh 
beef from starved sick cattle that have been brought upon 
the steamboat, the bacon, potatoes, bad ; nothing fit to eat 
but beans, and I 've lived on beans till I loathe the sight of 
them. What our poor wounded are to do, God only knows. 
I gave them all the money I had, and all I could borrow, 
but a good many of them will see hell before they die. 

As I write, the weather, which was beautiful and warm, 
changes to rain and then cold, and now as we sail down the 
river, we are in a violent snowstorm. The river is wide, and 
winding, and beautiful, lined with the canebrake and cotton 



264 Thomas Kilby Smith 

tree and now and then a fine plantation. The water is 
not fit to drink, being impregnated with soda and salts, that 
causes it to operate badly. Population is sparse upon its 
banks so far as we have gone. 

I received two copies of your little poem, and wish you 
would send me some more. It was very much admired. I 
showed it to Stuart one day in the field before Vicksburg. 
We were waiting breakfast early in the morning. He in- 
sisted on reading it through, and cried like a baby as he read 
it. You must send me some more copies. 

We are nearing the mouth of the river and soon shall be 
again on the broad Mississippi. 



HEADQUARTERS Second Brigade, Second Division, 

Fifteenth Army Corps, 

Steamer " Sunny South," January 20, 1863. 

My table is covered with orders, letters, plans, and maps, 
and my head full of business to the limit of its capacity, 
therefore, I propose to abandon business and for the small 
balance of this night, devote myself to you, my dear mother. 
This is the thirtieth day of this memorable expedition, a 
month has passed away since we left Memphis, a month 
fraught with startling events. Many a poor fellow has lost 
the number of his mess, and we are yet on the verge of the 
consummation of the great event. If you will look at the 
map, and running your eye down the Mississippi River seek 
a point first below the dividing line between Arkansas and 
Louisiana, say eighty-five miles above Vicksburg, you can 
form an idea of about the place where my headquarters, the 
Sunriy South, is now plowing her way southward. To- 
morrow we propose to debark at or near Milliken's Bend 
near the mouth of the Yazoo River, and this maj^ be my 
last opportunity for some time to come, of writing home ; the 
opportunity of sending, at any rate, is doubtful. I can only 
hope it will reach you, as I hope that other letters, cast as 



Letters 265 

waifs upon the water, have reached, or will reach their 
haven at last. 



I am in good condition in all respects for the next battle. 
The weather for the past two or three days has become de- 
lightful, neither too warm nor too cold, balmy and at the 
same time bracing. These southern winters are far prefer- 
able to those of Ohio and probably more healthful. The 
river is nearly bankfull, an immense wide expanse of water. 
We are passing beautiful plantations, with their long 
rows of neat, whitewashed negro quarters, every house de- 
serted. Now and then we come to the cane, then the cotton- 
wood. Sometimes, when we get to a long reach in the river, 
the view is beautiful ; one great fleet of steamboats, keeping 
their regular distance in military style, sometimes as many 
as sixty in sight, the steam wreathing up in fantastic forms, 
the spray from the wheels forming rainbows in the bright 
sunlight ; now and then a strain of martial music or the re- 
frain of a cheery song from the soldiers. Soldiers are much 
like sailors in this regard ; they will have their song and 
fiddle and dance, and we encourage it, because it keeps the 
devil down. 

I notice I have had a good many friends killed and 
wounded at Murfreesboro — glorious spirits gone up as avant 
couriers. 

L,ast night my own little fleet ran up one of the numerous 
chutes of this part of the river on the Arkansas side, and not 
long after we had landed I was boarded by a substantial- 
looking planter with a request for a guard to his house, as 
he had ladies in his domicile. I of course extended the de- 
sired protection and took occasion in person to see my orders 
carried out. Of course the hospitalities of the house were 
offered, and I passed a couple of hours very pleasantly in the 
society of the four ladies, who did the honors, a mother and 
three daughters, very fair samples of real Southern plantation 
society. 



266 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division, 
Fifteenth Army Corps, 
" Young's Point," before Vicksburg, Jan. 30, 1S63. 

My dear Wife and Mother : 

I have your letters, mother's of the 15th and i8th and wife's 
of 2 2d inst, I can imagine your anxiety, and regret you 
could not sooner have heard of my safety and well being. 
But you were not born to be a soldier's wife and mother. You 
must keep up brave hearts ; none of us can die but once ; as 
well in the battle as in bed. I hope my life may be spared 
to comfort you for many years to come, and assure you that 
I will not unnecessarily, or otherwise than in the strict per- 
formance of my duty, expose a life dearer to others than it 
deserves, far dearer to them than to me, and you must write 
me cheeringly. Give me words of comfort and good cheer. 
We need comfort, for we are in a pretty tight place at the 
present writing ; camped just in front of that famous ditch 
of Butler's that the papers made so much fuss about last year 
and in the full view of Vicksburg, about two miles, including 
the width of the river, from my tent. As I write, its white 
towers and steeples and window panes gleam in the light of 
the setting sun. It 's the Gibraltar of America, and we shall 
have a good time taking it, I guess ; but nil desperandum ; 
we shall try. I believe I wrote you some account of the 
affairs at Chickasas Bayou, and at Post Arkansas. My troops 
behaved remarkably well in both engagements, though I lost 
rather more than my share. I stand well enough with the 
army here, but have not had the luck to do anything bril- 
liant enough to make me brigadier, except so far as they can 
give it to me by brevet. I do most earnestly want the rank, 
and think I have honestly earned it, but suppose I must 
exercise patience and wait. My health is pretty good. In- 
deed I always feel well while the weather is cool and the 
past three or four days have been lovely. In the immediate 
personal superintendence of large works, I am in the saddle 
constantly. 

My horses are peculiar, and I ride hard in battle and lat- 
terly with a large command have had to spread myself over 



Letters 267 

the field. This was a good deal the case at Chickasas. 
Morgan I<. went over almost the first pop, while I had run 
the gauntlet half a dozen times before him and was over the 
same ground where he fell for hours afterwards and always 
tinder fire. The newspaper reports are all false ; there is 
scarcely any coloring of truth to them. I am always con- 
founded with Morgan I,, and his brother Giles A. I am 
utterly lost in the obscurity of the name. My only salvo is 
in the oflScial reports ; there alone can I be identified, and in 
an ofl&cial report the bare detail alone is permitted. I have 
sent you two from my immediate commanding officer. Gen- 
eral Sherman's I have not yet seen, but am told that I re- 
ceive therein flattering inention. I have tried hard to win 
my spurs, but my heart has been made sick by the terrible 
injustice of the public prints. I have nobody in particular 
to blame ; I don't know that I have a single enemy among 
the newspaper reporters ; yet I am always ignored. You 
must take the published stories of the correspondents with 
very great allowance. They are never eye-witnesses of the 
scenes they attempt to describe. This I assure you is true, 
and a moment's reflection will give you the reason why. 
They have no business in battle ; there is no position they 
could occupy. In the din and confusion and smoke and 
hurly burly, the assault, the charge, the cannonading, the 
rattling of musketry, the changing front of long lines of 
troops, the rapid advance, the quick retreat for change of 
position, the trampling of cavalry, and artillery and orderlies' 
horses — where would the newspaper reporter, with his pen 
and wit or pencil and paper be ? No, they are far off to the 
rear, picking up items from stragglers, and runaways and the 
rifif-rafi' of the camp and army ; with just enough knowledge 
of the ground and the main facts to form a basis, they draw 
upon their imagination for fancy sketches, and paint their 
-words in glaring colors. My regiment did go in where none 
dared to follow, and by my superior officer was withdrawn 
after the performance of the most heroic valor. It was the 
astonishment of the army, and no mention is made of it. 
The 8th Missouri was not under fire at any time during the 
fight at Chickasas. Its former colonel, the present major- 



268 Thomas Kilby Smith 

general, was wounded by a sharpshooter before the engage- 
ment fairly began. See the reports and the absurdity. But 
I won't dilate upon what you cannot well understand, and 
in which your heart cannot possibly be. ' 

headquarters second brigade, second dl\nsi0n, 
Fifteenth Army Corps, 
"Young's Point," before Vicksburg, Feb. 4, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

I could write much on these army matters and the course 
of events here if it were proper for me to do so ; but, of 
course, my lips are sealed and my pen tabooed. You must 
rest assured that all the newspaper accounts you have seen 
of the late battles, and the movements of the Army of the 
Mississippi, are basely, utterly false. So much has been 
admitted by the correspondent of the New York ... in 
my presence to General Sherman. Courts martial will de- 
velop strange facts. All that you read in the newspapers 
will only serve to mislead you and confuse your mind. Great 
plans cannot be revealed. Few of the generals themselves 
know them. The newspaper men, dangerous to the army as 

' Readers of Field Marshal, Lord Roberts's interesting book, will see 
that trouble with the correspondents of newspapers besets military 
commanders in these later days also. There is great similarity in the 
expression of his views in relation to this subject in his account of the 
Afghanistan campaign. 

"No one could be more anxious than I was to have all details of 
the campaign made public. I considered it due to the people of Great 
Britain that the press Correspondents should have every opportunity 
for giving the fullest and most faithful accounts of what might hap- 
pen while the army was in the field . . . What to my mind was 
so reprehensible in this Correspondent's conduct was the publication 
in time of war, and consequent excitement and anxiety at home, of 
incorrect and sensational statements founded on information derived 
from irresponsible and uninformed sources, and the alteration of tele- 
grams after they had been countersigned by the recognized authority, 
the result of which could only be to keep the public in a state of 
apprehension regarding the force in the field, and what is even more 
to be deprecated, to weaken the confidence of the troops in their coxa- 
mandei. "—Foriy-One Years in India, vol. ii., p. 166. 



Letters 269 

spies giving information to the enemy, closely restricted and 
carefully watched, nevertheless manage to mingle undetected 
with the residue of the horde of base camp followers who are 
always at the heels of the army. Provoked at the restrictions 
placed upon them, by common agreement they hound down 
with infamous slander the generals from whom the orders 
against them emanate. Thus the scoundrel . . . the 
correspondent of the New York . . . has admitted by 
letter to General Sherman, as well as verbally in my pres- 
ence, not only that his article was false, and malicious, 
and based upon false information received from parties 
interested in defaming General Sherman and his command, 
but that he renewed the old story of his insanity for the 
purpose of gratifying private revenge. . . . Our country 
is in an awful condition ; we are verging rapidly upon an- 
archy. Government has almost ceased to exist save in name. 
An immense army will be demoralized and crumble by its 
internal opposing forces. A united people have only to fold 
their arms and calmly bide the event. God help us, and 
forgive that political party which sowed the wind, the fruits 
of which we now reap. This much and this alone I have to 
say. A soldier has naught to do with politics ; the nearer 
he approaches a machine, an animal without volition, the 
more valuable he becomes to the service, and perhaps the 
greater part of our present difficulties grow out of the fact 
that our soldiers are too intelligent, for they will talk and 
they will write, and read the papers. Our Army of the 
Mississippi, and particularly our gallant " Old Division," 
have the firmest faith and the most implicit reliance upon 
Sherman and Grant. Sherman is a splendid soldier, a most 
honorable gentleman, a pure patriot. Would to God we had 
more like him to battle for the right. I earnestly pray God 
he may not be sacrificed. This new infusion I know nothing 
about. McClernand has been sent off ; he is out of place 
here. Brigadiers have come and are coming. I shall soon 
be superseded by some one of them, or General Stuart will 
be compelled to give way and I to him. No change of this 
kind will be cheerfully submitted to by my command. I 
have the most substantial evidence that I possess their affec- 



270 Thomas Kilby Smith 

tion and confidence. You speak about my resigning ; it 
would be utterly impossible for me to resign, if I desired to 
do so, and an effort on my part to have my resignation 
accepted would ensure my lasting disgrace. An officer can- 
not resign in the face of the enemy. But I do not want to 
resign. With all its terrible hardships and privations, greater 
than tongue can tell, or pen describe, the life of a soldier is 
dear to me. I love its dangers and excitements. I am 
proud of, and delighted with the applause which even a 
temporary success meets. I am relieved of the miserable, 
wretched chicanery that surrounds the civilian. I rejoice in 
the free air. I take kindly to the nomadic life that a field 
service compels. The romance of chivalry is realized, the 
ideality of my youth and early manhood brought into actual 
being. The war horse and the sabre, the glitter of the 
soldier's trappings, the stirring strains of martial music, the 
flashing eye, the proud, high bearing, the bivouac fire, the 
canteen, the song and jest, the perilous scout, the wary- 
picket, the night march, all familiar — this is my life. What 
I read of, till my cheeks tingled and my eyes suffused, I now 
do and my comrades do, and like Harry Percy, feel able to 
* ' pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon. ' ' 

How long we shall stay here, God knows ; it is a horrid 
place now, what it will be in the spring, none can tell ; a 
long flat swamp a foot above or below — I can't tell which — 
the level of the Mississippi, which we are fighting to keep out. 
That portion not covered with a growth of brake and timber 
is completely so by cockle burr, that grows to an enormous 
height and presents an almost impenetrable mass of those 
little prickly burrs that get into the manes and horsetails, 
the same kind we have at home, but fearfully exaggerated 
in size and numbers. It is not quite the season, but after a 
very little while we shall be enlivened hy the pleasant society 
of alligators and mocassin snakes, mud turtles and their co- 
adjutors. Meanwhile we have every conceivable variety of 
lice and small-pox, measles and mumps, and other diseases 
incident to women and children. There is a species of moss 
you have often heard of and which abounds in this climate — 



Letters 271 

a long hanging and beautiful moss when seen close at hand, 
but which waving in the forests presents a dreary funereal 
aspect. It is an article of commerce, and when properly- 
prepared is a material for the stuffing of mattresses. Of 
course the men, when we camped near where it grew, eagerly 
sought it to make their beds, and were much disgusted to 
find it filled with lice. It has to be boiled and bottled to 
clean it from vermin. So, with the moss, and the transport 
boats filthy in the extreme, many of which had been hospital 
boats, the troops were pretty thoroughly infected with the 
plagues of Egypt, all but the frogs ; and the first sun, I 
reckon, will make them tune their pipes. 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division, 
Fifteenth A. C, Young's Point, La., 

OPPOSITE ViCKSBURG, Feb. 22, 1863. 

My Dear Mother : 

I send other papers, to show the condition and feeling 
of our army here towards General Sherman, The public 
have been systematically, basely, infamously imposed upon 
by the journals or their paid hirelings, God knows we have 
enough to endure from the apathy and indifference of friends 
at home to say nothing of traitors and open treason. You 
say ' ' it may have been wise, but not well in General Sher- 
man to muzzle the press." You do not, cannot know all. 
General Sherman has had neither the power nor the will, 
to muzzle the press, but he has endeavored, and I am sorry 
to say, most unsuccessfully, to drive from among the camp 
followers of the army, the scoundrels, who by tergiversation, 
misrepresentations, and actual falsehood impose alike upon 
the credulity of the people and those who are honest among 
the conductors of the press. General Sherman has been 
actuated by the purest patriotism, and would not lend him- 
self to the contemptible chicane and meanness by which 
certain individuals have been puffed up or written down. 
Therefore these villains have conspired and confederated 
together to slander him and villify his command. One, 
. , . the correspondent of the New York . , . who 



2/2 Thomas Kilby Sfnith 

wrote one of the most shamefully false articles of all that 
appeared (and all were false), describing the affair at Chicka- 
sas Bluffs, admitted to General Sherman, in my presence and 
in answer to my questions, that because General S. was 
known to be opposed to the presence of professional news- 
paper correspondents in the army, therefore he had deter- 
mined to league with others of the fraternity who were here 
and revenge themselves by writing him down. That neither 
he nor they knew anything about him, but they had deter- 
mined among themselves to renew the old slander of his in- 
sanity, because they supposed that would be most injurious 
to him. He also admitted that his letters were false, and 
based upon false information. This he did in writing, and 
was subsequently tried by court martial, his confreres, mean- 
while, making their escape. His letter to the , . . was 
copied into the Vicksburg papers, and the enemy actually 
had the reading of it before we did, and became possessed of 
most valuable information to them. They had never re- 
garded our falling back from the bluflfs as a retreat, but sup- 
posed the withdrawal was stratagem on the part of Sherman, 
and cautioned their generals against the result. Immense 
plans were disarranged, and in consequence of their publica- 
tions much public treasure has been wasted and many lives 
lost. We know that very many of these newspaper corre- 
spondents are paid spies. We know that many of them are 
in certain interests, some in that of cotton speculators, some 
in that of gold brokers, some paid by combinations of bank- 
ers, who all use the intelligence they give the people for the 
furtherance of specific views. Hence you perceive the mis- 
chievous tendency of the productions of these canaille against 
the public weal, as well as the government, but aside from 
this a far more terrible effect is produced in the demoraliza- 
tion of the army and the shaking of the confidence of the 
soldiers in their leaders. The withdrawal of the army from 
Chickasas was regarded as one of the most brilliant military 
achievements of the war, by the army. Officers were en- 
thusiastic and it was regarded as equal to a victory in its 
effects upon the minds of the men. That the army was . . . 
in splendid condition for battle was evidenced by their con- 



Letters 



273 



duct at Post Arkansas, immediately thereafter. Yet no 
sooner were the newspapers received than their spirits were 
dampened and their ardor cooled by the first intelligence they 
had received, that they had been defeated and that their 
favorite general was in disgrace (for they may say what they 
please in Ohio, General Sherman is the favorite of this army 
and to-day is the hero of the West in fact, whether he has the 
reputation or not). Very well ! from whom does the infor- 
mation come to depress the feelings and outrage the sensibili- 
ties of the army ? — not from the public at home, but through 
the public journals, who, to use the mildest terms, have been 
imposed upon by at most five or six individuals, each one of 
whom is infamous in character, and because of his infamy, 
is fit for his nefarious trade. They find themselves cramped, 
and with a fiendish malignity, gratify their private revenge 
at the expense of a nation. To pull down Sherman they 
would sacrifice his army, to sacrifice that, they would betray 
the commonwealth. . . . Some of the journalists have 
a character to sustain, these have none, and it is these that 
should be scourged like hounds from every corps, division, 
and regiment of our army, whenever or whatever its service. 
We endorse General Sherman fully in this matter, and I re- 
fer you to the enclosed document marked " A, " a copy of 
the original which was signed by all the oflBcers of the ' ' Old 
Division ' ' with enthusiastic alacrity. The public are en- 
titled to and should have early information of the movements 
of our armies, when such information may be transmitted 
without notice to the enemy, but all such information should 
be under supervision and censorship, for the most obvious 
reason, and no personal allusion to the character or behavior 
of any oflScer or soldier should be permitted ; what that 
leads to the most obtuse can see. . . . For my record I 
point with what I believe is an honest pride to the official 
reports of my commanding generals, now part of the archives 
of the nation, and I would not exchange the autograph 
letters of General Sherman which I now enclose to you, for 
all or any of the newspaper fame that I have seen bestowed 
on any man. 

If I succeed in securing my promotion through legislative 

18 



2 74 Thomas Kilby Smith 

channels, it is well ; I think I deserve it. I think it not only- 
due to me from my country, but that it will enable me to 
render her more effectual service. I do not ask it as a favor 
— I demand it as a right ; and I am admonished that without 
the demand the right will not be accorded. Therefore, and 
properly, the action of my personal and political friends to 
bring me properly to the attention of the appointing power, 
to urge upon the Senate the propriety of remembering those 
who are placing their lives in peril to save the Republic, to 
remind the President of the propriety of selecting for his 
generals those who are most competent to lead his armies in 
the field. Whether I receive my promotion or not you and 
my friends will have been made to know that my immediate 
commanding generals think I deserve it, and that I have the 
confidence of my brother officers with whom I have served so 
long and so arduous a campaign. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division, 
Fifteenth Army Corps, March i, 1863. 

My dkar Mothe;r : 

You speak of my name not appearing in the Commercial ; 
if our official reports were published by that sheet it would 
appear. I have sent you copies of both reports, of my im- 
mediate commanders, of the recent battles. I believe my 
name is sufficiently conspicuous in both ; it is equally con- 
spicuous in the report of General Sherman. Flattery is 
contemptible to both parties ; all but flattery I think my 
commanders have given me. That my name does not ap- 
pear in the public prints is simply because I will not resort 
to the usual means and appliances to place it there. If I 
was a merchant or an inventor of quack medicines, I would 
advertise to fill my purse, but I cannot, I do not know how 
to advertise my honor, and I am almost ashamed to seek for 
that preferment which I should be accorded without the 
asking. Even in the seeking, if I know myself, I am un- 
selfish in intent, for I think, nay, know, that I can serve my 
country better in the position I want to have guaranteed to 
me — the one I now hold — than as the commanding officer of 



Lettej's 



275 



a regiment literally hacked and hewed to pieces in battle, to 
say nothing of accident or disease on the long and tiring 
march, the loathsome transport, the unhealthy camp. 
There are but few left of the brave hearts that followed me 
to the field. The graves of their dead are land-marks on 
eighteen hundred weary miles that their survivors are away 
— away from homes on the banks of the Miamies and the 
Sandusky, and the Scioto, and the Muskingum, from the 
farm and the village, from the workshop and the college, 
the railroad and the factory, all the way from the Ohio River 
to the shores of Erie. The whole State of Ohio, emphati- 
cally almost every county in it, was represented by my regi- 
ment, and such a regiment her borders will never raise again ; 
leal hearts and hardy frames, young, joyous, full of fire and 
enterprise and patriotism ; and, God help me, how many are 
gone ! Their bones bleach— bleach, that 's the word, for 
graves were shallow and coflSns they had none at ' ' Shiloh ' ' 
—their graves dot Tennessee from Corinth to Memphis. 
Unshrouded and unanealed their ghastly corpses gibber in 
the moonlight on the banks of the Yazoo ; and at Arkansas 
Post the rude head boards tell where the dead braves of the 
" 54th " rest. A handful are left— less than three hundred 
all told. 

In respect to General Sherman and the press, I have writ- 
ten at some length in a former letter that you doubtless have 
before this received. Not the press, but the infernal scoun- 
drels who prostitute it by making it a medium for their base 
designs upon individuals, the public, and the nation, does he 
propose not only to muzzle but destroy. General Sherman 
will live in history, and in the hearts of his countrymen 
when these wretched myrmidons shall have passed to infamy 
and eternal death. The reaction in his favor is sure to come. 
No man ever lived who, possessing his talents and energy, 
and purity of life and heart and purposes, failed to make his 
mark upon the times ; and as sure as he now lives, he will 
illustrate his position, and cause his name to shine brightly 
on the page of histor>^ His father-in-law, Mr. Ewing, 
quoted from Macaulay, and applied most appositely to him 



276 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the sentence " fierce denunciation and high panegyric make 
up what men call glory ' ' ; both the former has General 
Sherman had in no stinted measure, but his true glory is in 
his native excellence ; his full power has not yet been shown. 
O, Mother ! if you had seen that man as I have seen him, 
if you could have sat by his side as I have sat, amid death 
and destruction, when the fate of a nation seemed to hang 
and ... in my opinion did then hang on his word ; 
had you watched him as I watched, and noted him exalted 
above materiality, towering above and bej^ond the sense of 
pain and fear of death ; had you scanned his eagle eye flash- 
ing and blazing with the fire of intellect, and in its compre- 
hensive glance taking in and weighing the fate of thousands ; 
had you known him as I knew him, win a great, a glorious 
battle, great as Waterloo, and which ought to have been de- 
cisive, and that would, within twenty-four hours of its close, 
have been decisive of the fate of the Republic had he been 
alone in command, you would spurn the lucubrations of the 
miserable drivellers, who like mousing owls are hawking at 
the eagle towering in his pride of place, as utterly unworthy 
a second thought. Have you ever known me deceived in 
my judgment of men so far as intellect is concerned ? Where 
to-day are the friends and companions of my early youth and 
young manhood ? Some are dead, but the good was not in- 
terred with their bones ; they still live. One (you well 
know whom I mean) has made his opinions in the juris- 
prudence of Ohio classical ; his faults, his vices, if you 
please, are forgotten ; his graces, the strength of his glorious 
intellect, still illumines. Sherman is greater than he, and 
oh ! far better, and trust me, when lesser lights go out or 
feebly glimmer in obscurity, his will shine out a bright par- 
ticular star in the political firmament, a guiding star to 
those who come after him. If I could only approach him in 
example, you would have a son to be proud of. To me it is 
a matter of great pride that I have had the inestimable privi- 
lege of almost intimate association with him for a year past, 
by day and by night, in the peril of the field and the pleas- 
ures of the social board. I have never heard him utter a 
word that would bring the blush to the cheek of maiden 



Letters 



277 



purity. I have never known him insult his God ; he is in- 
variable in his just respect for the rights of others, and 
though he rarely smiles, though to the vast responsibilities 
with which he has been clothed, all the amenities of life with 
him have been sacrificed ; still, with a cheering amiability 
of heart, he has been foremost in strewing the few flowers 
that give fragrance to the thorny pathway of the soldier. 

As respects Vicksburg, I cannot, ought not, to write you 
much — time alone can tell what will be the result of our 
enterprise. All that men can do will be performed ; the rest 
is with the God of battles, who holds in His hands the fate 
of nations. I send a little sketch which may serve to give 
you some faint idea of the topography of the country. By 
the bye, I have learned that the name " Yazoo," in the 
Indian tongue, signifies death—" Yazoo River," the river 
of death — and truly its waters are most abominable, dealing 
death to almost all who drank freely of them, while its 
stream ran red with the blood of those slain on its banks. 
You will note its course, the position of the bayous, and 
where our troops fought. The celebrated " Haines Blufi"' 
and our present position toward Vicksburg. 

I have written to you that I enjoyed a soldier's life, and 
indeed I do notwithstanding its privations and discomforts, 
and in this, that it is a life of excitement and free from the 
care that has heretofore been my portion. With you I 
mourn that I did not enter the military academy when I had 
the opportunity, and fit myself while young for a brilHant 
military career, for I feel that it might have been made 
brilliant. Youth wasted ! well, why look back ? That 
" might have been " weighs often upon me like an incubus. 
If I could only keep fresh my youthful feelings. 

Colonel Spooner has probably been detained in his own 
State partly by family bereavement and partly by business. 
I shall hope he will be able to see you all before he returns. 
He is in my command, and can tell you a great deal about 
me. I am glad you were pleased with Major Fisher ; he is a 
favorite of mine and I have always kept him near my person. 
He is possessed of a fine and cultivated mind, is amiable in 



278 Thomas Kilby Smith 

character, but cool and brave in action. Was educated in 
his profession, of which he is a master, by General Rosecrans, 
and was promoted to his majority for his gallantry at Carni- 
fex Ferry in Virginia, and assigned to my regiment. In 
case I am promoted, I design he shall command it. He met 
with a great affliction in the loss of his wife, a most lovely 
girl, and her child, within a year of his marriage, and his 
life has been clouded and embittered in consequence. I be- 
lieve he is most sincerely attached to me, indeed I have been 
fortunate in making many friends in the service, and I doubt 
not an equal number of enemies. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division, 
Fifteenth Army Corps, March i, 1863. 

My dear Wife : 



I am much indebted to the Sisters of St. John for their 
prayers in my behalf, and you must so tell them from me. 
Ask them to take good care of our poor wounded soldiers. 
We have no Sisters in this army. Is not this strange ? I 
have seen some two or three women on the hospital boats, 
but they are poor concerns. Catholic Sisters would be a 
mercy in ministering to our hospital. No tongue can tell 
or mind conceive the anguish and neglect and suffering of 
the sick and dying soldiers in camp-r-and their graves ! such 
graves ! I fear from your remark of Sergeant White that 
he reports me as being profane. I trust not. I sometimes 
do get a little mad, and they say I make the fur fly, and 
swear the hair off the men's heads, but the recording angel 
sheds tears so copiously in these sad times that a few must 
fall on my page of errors. 

I can't help being amused when I hear the officers and 
orderlies ask outside my tent if the old general is in, or how 
is the old general to-day. I think my heart and feelings are 
fresh yet, though they are circumscribed. 



Letters 279 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Division, 

Fifteenth Army Corps, on Board Str. "SwaIvLOw," 

NEAR Young's Point, La., March 10, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

As you will notice from my dates from shipboard, I have 
changed somewhat the locus in qtio since my last ; fairly 
driven out by the high waters. The Mississippi proved 
rather too much for the engineer, and declined the narrow 
limits of the canal in paying tribute as called for, therefore 
we had to " take water " for fear of being drowned. I sup- 
pose the crevasses may be repaired, in which case we shall 
remain here till the experiment of the canal is fairly tested. 
When I have more time I will write you all about it. 

I am glad you saw Sergeant White who, as lately from 
me, could make himself interesting. I send all such, of high 
and low degree, to you, because they can answer many a 
question and relate many an incident that would escape my 
notice or memory, 

I enclosed you a copy of petition from my entire brigade 
for my promotion. I will send you copies of the endorse- 
ments of my commanding generals, which were very hand- 
some. It has not yet been submitted to General Grant, 
who is, however, my warm personal friend and who will 
doubtless say as much as the others. Then so far as the 
army is concerned, to use General Sherman's own language, 
" my record is perfect." I would not exchange it for that 
of the best puffed man in America. If promotion does not 
come, my family and friends at least will know that I de- 
serve it ; and I believe all proper effort has been made to 
secure it. 



Str. " SwAivi^ow," near Young's Point, La., 
March lo, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

My command has been camped, as you know on a very 
low swampy piece of land immediately in front ; and is the 
nearest of the troops to the city of Vicksburg, and just in 



28o Thomas Kilby Smith 

the rear of the canal. The enormous rise in the river 
coupled with copious rains, threw the water into the canal 
more rapidly than was anticipated, causing crevasses and 
inundation which made it necessary for me to change ground 
to the top of the main levee which extends all around the 
peninsula, the location of which you will the better under- 
stand by reference to my former letters. There my soldiers 
are literally roosting upon a narrow strip of land say ten feet 
in width at top, the Mississippi on one hand, an impassable 
swamp on the other. I, with my horses, have betaken my- 
self to a steamboat moored to the shore. How long this state 
of things will continue depends upon the state of the river ; 
when that falls, the canal will be completed. The weather 
has been intensely disagreeable and cold ; to-day it bright- 
ens, but for the last three days in thick winter clothing, I 
have been glad to sit close to a hot stove. My health is ex- 
cellent, and being close to General Grant's headquarters on 
the steamer Magnolia, I have been favored in the society of 
very pleasant gentlemen, himself and staff. General Stuart 
is on the boat with me, and General Sherman comes often 
to see us, and I assure you we have a right merry time. 
Ofi&cers who have been long in the army, especially gentle- 
men of good education, are far more accomplished, more 
agreeably entertaining than any other class of men. I speak 
of these matters, because I know it will be gratifying to you 
to learn, that amid vicissitudes, and danger, and deprivation 
of home comforts, I am still able to find pleasure and I trust 
profit in society of the high and noble. I think General 
Grant is very sincerely my friend, scarce a day passes that 
he does not invite me to dine with him ; always v/hen we 
meet. To-day he heard me mention that my foraging cap 
was shabby, and that I regretted not being able to provide 
myself with a new one here ; with great delicacy he went to 
his trunk and brought me his own quite new, insisting I should 
wear it. A small matter to speak of, but general officers are 
not usually so polite to those even of my grade, and a com- 
pliment of the kind coming from him, and in the manner it 
did was fully appreciated. 

I enclose you another and better copy of the beautiful and 



Letters 281 

spontaneous expression from my command, with the endorse- 
ments thereon. General Grant, upon placing his own there, 
sent me word he would like to forward it to the Department 
to-day ; when I called to express my acknowledgments, told 
me it would be accompanied by a letter from him. I think 
you will agree with me that the endorsements are better 
worth to me than the rank would be without them. They 
are something for those who come after me to keep, and the 
document showing the fact that all those I command desire 
me to lead them who have been with me in danger and death 
for so many long months, that all those I have served under 
have confidence in me still ; that with confidence I have 
friendship and affection, is surely worth preservation. How 
much better this than the fulsome compliments of a news- 
paper bought for money or bribed for service. I hardly hope 
even all this will bring me promotion ; and yet, in the here- 
after, opportunity may give the hope of glory. I may be 
blessed with the chance to win a place among ' ' the few, the 
immortal names that were not bom to die, " or if the Presi- 
dent chooses, he may brevet me. I believe he has recently 
been clothed with power to brevet. If not that, it will 
trouble the powers that be a good deal to take my command 
from me, and I will fight my way through as a colonel to the 
end. 

March 13, 1863. 

I have taken up my quarters for the present with General 
Sherman ; I found the boat unhealthy and disagreeable. I 
shall write again in a day or two. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, 

Camp before Vicksburg, March 16, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

I have changed quarters again and am now domiciled in a 
tolerably comfortable home under the same roof, and mess- 
ing, with General Sherman. My despatches are delayed, 



282 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and I now open my package to advise you of the receipt of 
your affectionate letter by Captain McCoy, who also brought 
me a small keg of whiskey, most acceptable. 

I note your enclosures and all you say about my promo- 
tion. As you will perceive by the enclosed testimonial 
(not the copy I intended to send — a certified one from head- 
quarters, and which for the present I intend to keep) that my 
record is as near perfection as anyone could hope. I am 
satisfied and can afford to wait for my country as long as she 
can wait for me. You have done everything, and I have not 
been backward. We need not worry about it. 

General Grant and General Sherman have done everything 
for me they could — will do anything I ask that they can 
do. I know I am honored with the friendship of both and 
the entire confidence of one. 

If you do write to General Grant, and I cannot say whether 
it would be advisable or not, I would rather the letter should 
not come through me, or know anything about it. I do hope 
you received General Sherman's noble reply to j'ours ; it 
was due before the dates of your letter March 3d. 

You must not suppose me reckless ; I am not so. It is 
true I have been singled out for many a shot, and God alone 
has protected me, but I go upon the battlefield to do my 
duty ; nothing more. I take no risks that the service does 
not demand. I think too much of my family to throw away 
my life. 



Headquarters, Dept. of the Tennessee, 

"Young's Point," La., March 27, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

On the 17th inst., ten days ago, my command, with the 
residue of General Sherman's old division, was suddenly 
ordered to reinforce Admiral Porter's fleet of gunboats, 
which had advanced up Steele's Bayou, with a view to an 
attack upon Yazoo City. The order came after midnight ; 



Letters 283 

and by daybreak we were embarked upon transports and 
under weigh, leaving our horses, transportation, and all 
impedimenta behind. The infantry accomplished all that 
was expected, but the Admiral was frustrated in his designs. 
To-night we are returned to our old camping ground and I 
am accepting General Grant's hospitality, and propose to 
stay on board the Magnolia, his headquarters. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div., 
Fifteenth Army Corps, 
Camp before Vicksburg, April 3, 1863. 

My dkar Mother : 

We are fully aware of the feelings toward Sherman. 
We know the antagonism against the Army of the South- 
west. We know the efforts of traitors at home, and those 
who are not called traitors but who nevertheless would re- 
joice at the failure of his army to open the Mississippi, jeal- 
ousy is rampant ; war, more terrible civil war than we have 
yet known, will desolate the North as well as the South. 
My friends at home will remember my prophecies two years 
and one year ago. The rebellion, revolution, call it what 
you will, is not understood. 

David Stuart has been rejected by the Senate. He is now 
neither general nor colonel, and is only waiting from day to 
day an order to relieve him from his command. Of course 
it will affect me and at once. He was my immediate ranking 
commander, and his place will be filled, I suppose, by Frank 
Blair. I shall not be immediately affected in my command 
— that is, I shall retain my brigade — but aside from this I 
am seriously and personally grieved. General Stuart has 
been my near, dear, and most intimate friend ; his place as 
such to me in the army can never be filled. Of splendid 
genius, most liberal education, wonderful accomplishments, 
as scholar, orator, lawyer, statesman, and now soldier. With 
the courage and chivalry of a knight of old, and the sweet- 
ness and fascination of a woman, he won me to his heart, 



/ 



284 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and no outrage . . . has affected me more than his 
rejection. I have no patience to write about it or think 
about it. The blow was unexpected by all of us. Gen- 
erals Grant and Sherman, Stuart and I never thought of 
such a thing — could not guard against it. When I first 
reported at Paducah with my regiment to General Sher- 
man, at my own request, for I had known him in Wash- 
ington, I was brigaded with him. We went directly into 
service and together. We fought side by side at the bat- 
tle of Shiloh, till he was wounded, when I assumed his 
command. We made all the advances to Corinth together 
and rode side by side in the long marches through Tennes- 
see. We fought at Chickasas Bayou and at Arkansas Post, 
and advanced together at " Young's Point. ' ' Many and many 
a long night's watch I made with him, many a bivouac in 
the open air through night and storm and darkness, always 
sharing our canteens and haversacks. Had I been killed he 
would have perilled life to save my body. Was my honor 
assailed, he the first to defend it ; little I could ask of him 
he would not grant, and when I say to you that he was 
really the only real, true, thoroughly appreciative friend I 
have in the army who I care much about, you may imagine 
how irreparable is my loss. His character is not well under- 
stood in the community, because an unfortunate notoriety 
attached to him in the . . . case. 

His own sufferings therein turned him prematurely gray in 
a very few months. His father was a partner of John Jacob 
Astor in the celebrated American Fur Company, and made 
for Astor ten millions of dollars. He was educated at An- 
dover and in Boston, and was the protege of Mrs. Harrison 
Gray Otis. He was brought into life very early, and married 
into the Brevoort family in New York, but being a great 
favorite of General Cass, was brought into politics in Michi- 
gan. At a very early age he was Prosecuting Attorney of 
Detroit, and immediately afterwards represented the Detroit 
district in Congress ; there I made his acquaintance. He 
abandoned political life to take the solicitorship of the great 
Illinois Central Railroad, which gave him the control of the 



Letters 285 

railway influence of the entire State and Northwest ; and he 
abandoned stipulated salaries of eighteen thousand dollars 
per annum to enter the service, having expended upwards 
of twenty thousand dollars to put two regiments into the 
field. He has travelled largely in Europe and in Canada ; 
his family are in the army and navy, he is exceedingly 
familiar with military life and has a most decided taste for it. 
His record is clean and bright, one to be proud of ; he exerts 
a wider and better influence than any other man in this 
army, and why he should have been thrown over is a 
mystery. 

The roses are blooming here and the figs are as large as 
marbles, the foliage is coming out green and the mocking 
birds hold high carnival. This is a famous country for 
flowers and singing birds. My horses are all well. If there 
was any safe opportunity, and I thought you could manage 
them, I would send two or three home ; they are very high- 
strung and want a master's hand. Bugles and bayonets 
don't tend to depress the spirits of a good horse, and mine 
are the best in the army. 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div., 
Fifteenth Army Corps, 
" Young's Point," La., April 9, 1863. 

My dear Bessie : 

How is the little baby brother ? I think of him a good 
deal, and how anxious you all must have been for his re- 
covery. I have had something to worry me here too in my 
other great family. I have a good many children to look 
after here, and many of them get sick and some of them die. 
Perhaps mother will recollect a letter she received from my 
aide-de-camp, lyieutenant Seeds, a letter, I think, she did 
not answer, but which was written just after the battle of 
Chickasas Blufis to apprise her of my safety. The writer 
was a brave, gallant young man of singular beauty and fine 
address, a graduate of Delaware College, who had enlisted 
in my old Zouave regiment as a private and from principle, 



286 TJiomas Kilby S^nith 

for his father was rich. A long time I sought promotion for 
him, and at last succeeded, and when I had obtained his 
commission, I placed him on my staff to have him near my 
person. He rode well and boldly, with a firm seat and a 
light hand and in both battles staid by my side, never leaving 
me but to take an order. At Arkansas Post he was so dash- 
ing and conspicuous as to bring cheers from both armies. 
Well, when we debarked at "Young's Point " I was harassed 
with much responsibility, and far in front had to fight the 
enemy, and the elements, and the great Mississippi River, 
and for two days and two nights hardly dismounted save to 
change horses. I forgot or was careless to think that my 
aides were not iron, or steel, or capable of my own endurance, 
and instead of changing them as I changed my horses, let 
them stay with me, and the third day they sickened, and 
poor Frank never got well. He pined and weakened day by 
day — would n't give up, game to the very last — and I nursed 
him as best I could in his tent, but it was very cold and wet, 
raining almost every day. His disease was t5^phoid, not 
much pain, but wasting fever, and the poor fellow would 
come out with his overcoat and sit shivering by the camp 
fire between the showers ; could n't drink whiskey, or smoke 
tobacco, our only luxuries; couldn't eat, and would lie 
awake all night, and listen to the shells hissing over us (for 
we were close to the canal and within range of it, and in 
those early days of the siege they harassed us) and look up 
at me with his great eyes glistening with fever. I had no 
comfort for him, only a word of cheer, but I did n't think he 
would die, and so at last when we thought he was a little 
better, and he had been sick four long weeks, I had him 
carried down to the boat on a stretcher, placed on what they 
call a hospital boat — that is, a steamer with the whole cabin 
fixtures taken out, no state rooms, but in their place, long 
lines of cots, and some boats carry a thousand. There I dis- 
posed him as comfortably as I could and took leave, he 
weeping, for he was tenderly attached to me, and I gave 
him letters to you all, told him to go to the house and you 
would nurse him and when he got well to come back, and 
we would ride together again in battle, saw that he had some 



Letters 287 

money and left him, and to-day they write me he is dead. 
He only got as far as Memphis ; relapse, hospital, and — ' ' he 
has fought his last battle." Only twenty-five, tall, finely 
formed, beautiful bright chestnut hair, red chestnut, frank 
open countenance, the soul of honor ; and so they drop away 
from me, and all my best men, all I love most, are shot down 
or die. 

Did I write you about the flowers and the birds, the sweet- 
est, most eloquent birds you ever heard, and the prince of all 
of them, the mocking bird, sings all the day and of a verity 
all the night long. You could n' t hear the mocking bird in 
perfection anywhere but here, and wild ; I ought not to say 
wild, either, for the pert, game little rascal is as tame as a 
chicken ; he '11 just hop out of your way, and that 's all — 
but what a flood of song he pours forth ! There 's one fellow 
who has built his nest not far ofl" upon the topmost limb of a 
fig tree, a little way from my tent, and there he has whistled 
since before reveill6 this morning everything that any bird 
ever whistled before him, making the welkin ring with his 
melody. He has to help the thrush and the red bird and 
the black bird and the rice bird ; but altogether. They have 
a royal time of it while the figs are ripening and the roses 
bloom ; the delicate sweet roses, we used to cultivate with so 
much care, pout their lips and ask for kisses in March, and 
keep on blooming on great bushes till December. All the 
monthlies, the Giant, Marie Antoinette, Souvenirs, beautiful 
white roses, such as you rarely see, and all, almost without 
cultivation, perfume the air, with woodbine and every variety 
of honeysuckle all out now. The weather is perfectly de- 
licious, neither too warm nor too cold, just right for a blanket 
or two at night, a dashing gallop in the morning, a cool walk 
on the parade at eventide ; moonlight such as you never 
dreamed of, and oh, such sunsets ! I used to think they 
could get up a pretty fair performance of this kind at Mac-o- 
cheek, when I was young and romantic, and before you were 
thought of, but a sunset on the Mississippi is beyond com- 
pare ; and to stand by the broad river side at night, when 
its surface is glassy and still, and by the clear moonlight 
see the reflection in the water, is worth several days' journey. 



288 Thomas Kilby S^nith 

This sunny Soutli is very sweet ; its clime almost genial. 
No one can wonder they love it, and my theory of the war 
now is just to go on and take it. I approve of colonizing as 
we go, open the crevasse and let the Northern hordes flood 
through, and like the waters of the great river spread over 
the plain not to return again to the parent rills, but to fer- 
tilize and fructify the earth. 

I have been quiescent and still for eight or ten days, a 
good while for me, and am disciplining and drilling my sol- 
diers in a beautiful and most convenient camp. Upon so 
spacious a plain I can pitch the tents of my whole brigade in 
the rear of a continuous color line, when all the regiments 
are out on dress parade. I assure you it is a pleasant sight 
these pleasant evenings. In the intervals of drill, the men 
play ball, the whole plain is carefully polished and smooth as 
a floor. How long we shall enjoy our pleasant rest nobody 
knows. I suppose we must look out for the gallinippers 
next month. We had already one or two little tastes of 
their quality. 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div., 
Fifteenth A. C, 
Young's Point, La., April >9, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

The weather here is cool and delightfully pleasant. The 
climate of lyouisiana is much misunderstood at the North. 
The nights are cool enough now for two or three blankets ; 
mornings and evenings fresh ; sun rather oppressive in the 
middle of the day. We have flies, but no mosquitoes 3^et, 
where my camp is pitched. I apprehend great trouble from 
them hereafter, though, and have no bar. One of my officers 
on detached service, within a few miles, reports to me that 
he has eaten alligator steak and chowder, and that yesterday 
they killed one that measured nine feet. He reports also 
bear and deer and other wild game. The woods here now 
are vividly green, vocal with song of birds, and all flowers 
are blooming. I saw a handful of ripe strawberries that were 
gathered more than a week ago. 



Letters 289 

Most plantations within reach of us are despoiled, so that 
no fruits or vegetables can be had ; we see ruins and hear of 
what might have been. A blessed paradise being turned 
into a howling wilderness. 



HEADQUARTERS SECOND BriG., SECOND DiV., 

Fifteenth a. C, 
Young's Point, La., April 23, 1863. 

My dkar Mother : 

By the enclosed order, you will see that I am virtually 
mustered out of the service. My regiment, by the accident 
and casuality of camp and bivouac, march and battle, having 
been reduced to less than one half of the maximum number 
prescribed by law. I only wait to be relieved from my com- 
mand by order of the commanding general. The army is on 
the eve of what I consider a desperate enterprise. I believe 
the movement is forced by the folly and madness of poli- 
ticians at home, (and by home I mean the pleasant places of 
safety far away from the bayou and the swamp, the slippery 
deck, the lonely picket,) to destroy the army or break down 
its leaders, which will be the same thing. I cannot fix the 
blame upon individuals, I do not speak from a sense of indi- 
vidual outrage. For a year past I have seen a splendid 
army crippled and its efforts rendered abortive by the insane 
policy of imbecile rulers. I foresee the loss of another year. 
The order alluded to will go farther to destroy the army 
than a campaign of five years with such soldiers as we 
have now trained. 

What the course of the generals will be in my case, I do 
not know. I must go on, till an order comes relieving me 
from my command ; of course in the field and anticipating 
an early engagement I cannot as a man of honor ask my 
discharge, which I have the right to claim forthwith. The 
order will be embarrassing. I do not propose to say what 
has passed between General Sherman, General Blair, and 
myself, regarding the matter. I had occasion the other day 
to test the temper of the soldiers. The whole division, three 
brigades and four batteries, were drawn up in hollow square 



290 Thomas Kilby Smith 

to hear General Thomas announce the policy of the Presi- 
dent. After he had concluded, General Sherman and Gen- 
eral Blair, who were on the platform with him, followed with 
speeches, and as they had concluded, General Thomas in- 
vited the soldiers to call for whom they pleased. I think it 
would have done your heart good to hear some seven thou- 
sand voices ring out clear for Kilby Smith. There was no 
mistaking that sort of demonstration or the yell that greeted 
me as I mounted the platform. Still soldiers are fickle as 
the rest of mankind. To-morrow it may be somebody else, 
the pet of popular favor, to yield in his turn to his successor. 
If I had the regiment alone, I would not hesitate a moment 
as to my course ; with the brigade it is difierent and I must 
bide patiently. I had hoped to be bre vetted, that chance is 
cut off. I have ceased to hope the appointment of brigadier- 
general. I have a ' ' heart for any fate. ' ' 



Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div., 
Fifteenth A. C, 
Young's Point, I^a., April 25, 1863. 

With us now is the excessive calm and quiet of a camp 
just preceding a march, and when all the regiments have 
marching orders ; no hurry, no bustle, each man at his post 
and packing his own kit. Monday we move, first by trans- 
port, then the march. No tents, one blanket to each man. 
March light ; that 's the order. Sixty rounds of ammunition 
in the cartridge box and on the person. One hundred extra 
in the wagons, per man, that means business. The sun 
shines bright, but the soft South wind blows balmy and 
fans one's cheek like the breath of angels ; nature is hushed 
in expectancy. Next the rattle of the cannon and the rolling 
of the drum. 



We have news to-night that they are fighting in Tennes- 
see, over our old battleground. There '11 be some fun this 
summer all around or I 'm mistaken. lyong time before the 



Letters 291 

" thirsty Erinnys of this soil shall cease to daub her lips with 
her own children's blood, or trenching war to channel her 
fields and bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs of hostile 
paces. ' ' 



Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Drv., 

Fifteenth A. C, 

Camp before Vicksburg, April 27, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

* ' Man proposes and God disposes. ' ' In my letter of Satur- 
day, I advised you all that we should march to-day, and that 
night, the heavens opened and the rains descended and 
the floods came and we remain in statu quo. I^ast night cer- 
tain boats ran the blockade of Vicksburg in the midst of a 
tremendous thunder storm and as the cannon from the 
enemy's batteries belched forth death and destruction, the 
elemental war began and heaven's artillery pealed. All 
night the earth was convulsed, the ear deafened with sound 
and fury, and to-day the clouds are weeping, the ground lies 
drenched, and the trees hang their branches as if in despair. 
The storm is the forerunner of certain lengthened rains 
which may be expected here at this season, and will retard, 
if not materially disarrange, the plans heretofore matured. 
In my former letters I have indicated my want of confidence 
in their results, and have not yet seen fit to change my 
opinion. The order of march is rescinded and we await here 
further orders. You note in the papers frequent mention of 
the blockade and the running of the same, and for your 
edification, I will essay some description of what it means, 
for on one or two nights I have been close within sight and 
range on shore, and four nights ago in company with General 
Blair and some naval ofl&cers went down with the gunboats 
on a small steamboat tug, as it is called (literally a ' ' tug of 
war "), to the scene of the conflict. The ground we occupy, 
as I have before informed you, is in the shape of a long and 
narrow horseshoe, and the distance from Young's Point, a 
landing directly opposite the mouth of the Yazoo River, to 



292 Thomas Kilby S7nith 

the furtherest point of toe of the horseshoe is about six miles. 
Immediately in front of this latter point are the Court House 
and principal buildings of Vicksburg, which is situate upon 
one of a range of high bluffs, one hundred and fifty feet 
above our level ; these bluffs extend around us in the shape 
of a vast amphitheatre, and at regular intervals their heights 
are crowned with batteries, while at their base are placed 
what are called water batteries. A battery, as it is termed, is 
usually applied to a collection of several guns. The term is 
also used in speaking of the arrangements made of a parapet 
to fire over it or through openings in it. I don't want to 
bore you with technicalities, but a knowledge of them is so 
often erroneously presupposed that many otherwise good de- 
scriptions lose their force. Upon and around this amphi- 
theatre, then, you must imagine one hundred batteries, and 
as they change from point to point about one hundred and 
sixty guns. The calibre of these guns is from six pounds, 
that of the light field piece, to one hundred pound Parrots ; 
of these latter there are but two or three. The major part of 
their metal, so far as we can ascertain, is from ten to thirty 
pounds. Now you must know that the pointblank range 
of sixpounder guns is about six hundred yards, and that of 
twelve-pounder guns about seven hundred yards ; that the 
chances of hitting a mark are less with pieces of small than 
of large calibre, owing to windage, the effect of wind, etc. 
That the rate of firing is about forty seconds a shot for field 
pieces, and about one minute for twelve-pounders, but that 
when the enemy is close at hand and deliberate aim not 
necessary, two rounds may be fired per minute. With these 
explanations you may have some faint idea of what running 
the blockade means, when I further inform you that our fleet 
of transports has been lying from Young's Point along 
shore down stream to within a short distance of the mouth of 
the canal ; that they have been guarded by gtmboats lying 
at the mouth and a short distance up the Yazoo ; that when 
it is proposed to go around, a dark night is selected or some- 
times in a moonlight night after the moon has set. The 
boats having been protected all round the machinery, in 
front, and along the side presented to the enemy, with cotton 



Letters 293 

bales, bales of hay, etc., are divested as far as possible of 
their crew, a full head of steam is had on, and paddling 
slowly and cautiously till they arrive at the bend, full 
power is put on, and they go by as best they can, one at a 
time. The enemy is always on the lookout, and the signal 
gun is followed by continuous roar from all till the boats 
pass below Warrenton, five miles from the bend and the ter- 
minus of their fortifications. The heavens are lighted up by 
the beacon fires of the enemy and what are called calcium 
lights, so constructed as to throw broad and bright reflec- 
tions on the water, and so point out the passing boats. The 
flashes of their cannon make almost a continuous line of 
bright light, the booming reports shake the ground and 
water, and make boats and houses tremble as by an earth- 
quake. If the transports are convoyed, as has twice been 
done, by gunboats, these reply, and if the boats are struck, 
as frequently happens, the cotton is fired by exploding shells, 
bundles of bales blazing with lurid light are cast into the 
water, floating for miles, and whirled by the eddies. The 
river now appears one broad stream of flame, a boat is sunk, 
one or two are burning, sailors are seen making their way to 
shore, on boards or boats. The riflemen of the enemy line 
the shore, and the sharp report of small pieces with the 
waspish sing of the balls, is occasionally distinguished above 
all the din. They shoot at those endeavoring to escape ; 
they fire whole volleys at the broadside of the steamer in the 
hope of killing one man. The pickets on our own lines pace 
rapidly upon their beat, they are within range, the reserves 
are upon the shore to give succor to the drowning ; outside 
of this hell all is blackness and the darkness of night. These 
boats, in fine, go round ; the others are helpless, hopeless 
wrecks. Day dawns, and the river is banked with smoke of 
the conflict. A body floats by, the entrails are all torn out ; 
it is the pilot, who was cut across the belly by a passing shell. 
Few lives are lost, for few of the living attempted the voy- 
age ; the bodies, if found, will be buried ; if not, will be- 
come food for the alligator or the gar. A few jokes through 
the day, and all is forgotten in the next order of march or 
preparations for another run. The boats are manned by 



294 Thomas Kilby Smith 

volunteers ; there are always enough for the purpose, and 
yet they know there is no glory to be gained, that their 
names, even, will never be known beyond their company or 
regiment, that they must pass within from one hundred and 
fifty to three hundred yards of the cannon's mouth ; batteries 
manned by men hellbent on their destruction. " Into the 
jaws of death, into the mouth of hell," with wild halloo and 
bacchanal song, a curse if they 're hit, an oath if they escape, 
they go to destruction, mayhap, not to glory. So much for 
running the blockade. When I feel quite like it, I '11 send 
you a map and explain the country about here, and tell you 
why we don't take Vicksburg. If anybody should ask you 
that question, just tell them it is because we have no ground 
to stand upon. It is all water and swamp for miles below us 
and every inch of the opposite side disputed. If we get a 
standpoint for operations, then we drive them, if needs be, 
at the point of the bayonet. We must wait the turn of 
events. I see the Admiral made a failure at Charleston. 
We have just got the news, and Congress with the President 
determines to cripple the army. Well, " those whom the 
gods destroy, they first make mad. ' ' 

I wish I had something else to write to you about — some- 
thing that would be more interesting than the army. I am 
in a close circumscribed sphere, with limited knowledge of 
the outside world ; the 27th of the month, and my latest 
dates the 15th — of course I am far behind the age. Wife's 
poetry is very pretty, and Colonel Fisher was pleased to get 
it. I have just managed to secure his promotion. It will 
do him but little good ; like the others I have loved and 
lost, he is doomed. I give him about one month more and 
then I think he will go under. There was another verj^ fine 
and gallant young man in the regiment, Captain Williams. 
I had him promoted to Major and the ver>'- day his commis- 
sion arrived, he was seized with small -pox and is now in the 
pest hospital. He was struck in the breast by a Minie-ball 
in the charge at Chickasas ; he has been very weak since, 
and I think this is the last of him. I think I shall counsel 
Colonel Fisher to resign ; his is a valuable life. 



Lette7'-s * 295 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Drv., 

Fifteenth A. C. 

Camp near V-Burg, Walnut Hills in the rear 

and before fortifications, may 23, 1863. 

My dkar Mother : 

' ' The bugles sing truce, and the night cloud has lowered, ' ' 
and I have brief season to say that I am alive and unscathed, 
though since Thursday last, this being Saturday at one, I 
have been in a slaughter pen. I have this moment come 
from my hospital in the rear — my first duty after putting my 
troops under some sort of protection from fire, such as the 
ravines could give, was there. God help us — a fearful, fearful 
sight. I have seen agony and death in all its phases, but 
never before have as many of my own, my own good, true, 
leal hearts, draining ofi" drop by drop their best blood in mor- 
tal agony, been bared before me. One of my pet colonels is 
shot through, maimed for life, if life is saved at all. Cap- 
tains, lieutenants, non-commissioned officers, and so many 
private soldiers. My official reports are not all in, but I 
must lose out of my own command nearly three hundred, 
and these my bravest and best. God ! what a charge it was ! 
Talk of Balaklava — it sinks into insignificance. And they 
went on horseback, while we had to work in on foot, over 
tangled abattis, up precipitous hills, and against ramparts 
bristling with cannon and rifle ; the pits behind filled with 
soldiers ready with the hand grenade, and under a con- 
stantly enfilading fire. You have read of hurling masses of 
men. I wish I could write — language utterly fails me. Not 
now at least. You will read I suppose something of it. We 
have been in battle for days, but the charges, the attempts 
to carry the place by assault, — then was the very pitch, the 
culminating grand climax and fever drama of battle, only 
horses were wanting. My men came on so gallantly ; not 
one to falter. I turned back to see them swept down in 
ranks. Their comrades rushed over the bodies of the dead. 
I planted two stands of colors on the outer verge ; these 
stand upon the crest . . . just behind. Men could not 
scale a perpendicular wall of fifteen feet. Men could not 
have gone up without guns in their hands and with no 



296 • Thomas Kilby Smith 

enemy in front. "We did all mortal man could do — but such 
slaughter ! Our division lost six hundred and eighty the 
first day ; yesterday probably a thousand. We shall cer- 
tainly lose fifteen hundred, and of those our bravest and 
best. My men are so gallant. I have n't a coward in my 
brigade. But if you could see their ghastly wounds, the 
faces of the dead. I have been on many battlefields, none 
like this, no such slaughter in so brief a space of time ; not 
so many of my own to mourn. I ought not to write yoM 
now ; ought not to write to any one in my present frame of 
mind, but I have an opportunity to send. I have just un- 
buckled my sword, and in the unnatural calm succeeding a 
bloody, bloody battle, pencil to you that I am well. To- 
morrow, perchance, the jest and the wine cup, maybe the 
grave. I hope not the hospital. Oh, that horrid, horrid, 
damnable hospital ! Rather a thousand deaths in the glori- 
ous enthusiasm of battle than an hour's torture on that table. 
We cannot take Vicksburg by assault upon the rear 
through these fortifications. They are masterpieces of skill 
in military engineering. We shall approach by parallels, 
sap and mine. Our other great victories before reaching 
here you have heard of. If I can possibly get the leisure 
you shall have a detailed account of my march, and engage- 
ments up to the time of forming the first line of battle before 
the fortifications. God has spared my life. I hope for some 
good purpose. I cannot understand it. I have passed 
through a rain of bullets. Why is it ? All around me have 
been cut down. So many, so much more valuable lives 
sacrificed and mine spared. I am ripe ; I could go now. 
Oh ! if I could only have got in the devils would have fled ; 
they can't fight in open field ; it is only behind breastworks 
and intrenchments. God help Vicksburg now, if our soldiers 
do get in, I shall be deaf and blind and one city will be 
sacked. We wax hot ; the battle is not to the strong. I am 
running away in rhapsody. I am well, unhurt. I stand at 
the head of what is left of as brave a brigade as America can 
boast. It is known as the ' ' fighting brigade, ' ' and well has 
it sustained its reputation. I am proud ; not quite exulting 
in victory, though we have driven the enemy to his strong- 



Letters 



297 



hold. We have desolated his towns and villages, and of 
pleasant places have made a wilderness. He has fled before 
us like chaff before the wind ; this is enough for you all to 
know now. I am well, exultant, my armor on, my face to 
the foe ; even as I write bullets whistle and shells hurtle 
about me. To-morrow, if it comes to me, or the next day, 
I will write you in detail. I am writing very hurriedly 
now, in the midst of much excitement, perhaps not lucidly. 
I am sitting among the dead and must bury my dead, no 
shrift or shroud, and shallow grave. I only write to let you 
know I am safe and well. There are brigadier-generals 
here, with bright, new stars upon their shoulders, but with- 
out command, who are doubtless eagerly seeking my place. 
Perhaps I shall be compelled to give way to some one of 
them ; if not, before I put my sword away something may be 
accomplished. So much of myself. You are this night 
reading the papers and trembling for my fate, so I write, and 
of myself, to stay your grief and apprehension. I am quite 
well. God grant you all are well. Pray for me now. My 
spirit is proud and high ; it goeth before destruction ; I 
cannot subdue. 
God bless you all. 

Your aflfec. Son, 

Tom. 

Headquarters Second Brigade, Second Div., 

Fifteenth A. C, 

Wai,nuT Hii,i^, Miss., May 25, 1863. 

I wrote you a hurried note yesterday to give you all at 
home assurance of my safety. I am to-day in receipt of 
your letters of May 29th, enclosing one from wife advising 
of the death of Judge Piatt, and of May 5th, and from Helen 
of May loth. I promised you yesterday full details of march 
and fight, and for convenience (time being precious and op- 
portunity for writing scant), substitute diary of one of my 
clerks, which gives the main facts, and enclose for reference 
a map to accompany same, upon which route of army can be 
traced. At close of diary you will perceive I have been re- 



298 Thomas Kilby Smith 

lieved from my command. I send copy of correspondence 
between General Sherman and myself which ensued upon 
reception of the order, the only explanation I have to oflFer. 
I premise the same by a copy of the order assigning General 
Lightburn. 

I proposed to General Sherman either of three courses, to 
resign, to ask to be mustered out, or for leave of absence. 
He declines to entertain either. I have indicated my inten- 
tion to refuse the command of my regiment. I am not yet 
ordered to duty, and so the matter stands. Before you re- 
ceive this letter we shall probably have reduced Vicksburg, 
or have had another very bloody fight with the enemy in our 
rear. In the event of a battle my course will be plain ; 
meanwhile I shall remain quiescent as circumstances will 
admit. Our late engagements have been very bloody, our 
losses heavy, the enemy must have suffered hugely in killed 
and wounded. I enclose a sketch of Vicksburg. 

In respect to the order for consolidation of regiments, a 
healing order has been published by the President leaving 
the enforcement of the same discretionary with corps and 
department commanders. The generals have declined to 
permit it to apply to me, so I am held. My services will not 
be dispensed with till my body becomes useless. I have no 
option in the matter. Therefore you perceive I am unable 
to follow your advice if I would. I cannot resign. They 
will not muster me out. They will not grant me furlough. 

Don't give yourself one moment's uneasiness about me. 
I am proud as the black knight with his visor down. My 
honor, thank God, is bright ; no stain on my flag, though it 
is rent and torn and well-nigh riddled with balls. I will 
send on a copy of my official report and will write again very 
shortly. 

The land has been devastated, desolated ; the sufferings 
of the people, particularly the women, are terrible. Ladies 
in Vicksburg are now living in caves and holes in the ground 
to protect them from the unceasing fall of shot and shell from 
our guns. They disobeyed Pemberton's order and would 



Letters 299 

not leave the doomed city. They could not believe we were 
so near at home. Their soldiers are reduced to one fourth 
rations. 



WAI.NUT HlI.I,S, NEAR ViCKSBURG, MiSS., May 30, 1863. 

My DarIvIng : 

I have carried your last letter, 26th April, in my breast 
pocket close to my heart for many a day with intent to an- 
swer ; it is quite yellow with the damp of rain and night 
dews, and what had well-nigh been bloody sweat, for it has 
been with me on the long marches and on the hard-fought 
fields. But thanks to your prayers, I am spared this glori- 
ous moonlight night to answer it. 

I do not think, my dear daughter, that you read Schiller 
yet. Do you know you quote him almost verbatim to me ? 
You say you think " I must be tired of war and drilling sol- 
diers." You might have gone on and written " the camp's 
stir and crowd and ceaseless larum, the neighing war-horse, 
the air-shattering trumpet, the unvaried, still returning, 
hour of duty, word of command and exercise of arms, ' ' and 
then a little further — 



" O ! day thrice lovely ! when he becomes 
A fellow man among his fellow men, 
The colors are unfurled, the cavalcade 
Marshals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark ! 
Now the soft peace march beats, home, brothers, home ; 
The caps and helmets are all garlanded 
With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields ; 
The City gates fly open of themselves. 
They need no longer the petard to tear them ; 
The ramparts are all filled with men and women ; 
With peaceful men and women that send onwards 
Kisses and welcomings upon the air, 
Which they make breezy with aflFectionate gestures ; 
From all the towers rings out the merry peal, 
The joyous vespers of a bloody day. 
O ! happy man, O ! fortunate ! for whom 
The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, 
The faithful, tender arms with mute embracing." 



300 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Yes, daughter, most gladly would I give the " blood-stained 
laurel for the first violet of the leafless spring," plucked in 
those quiet fields where you are wandering. You give a beau- 
tiful description of your new home. Well you may say ' ' Ala- 
bama. ' ' I must tell you the circumstance from which that 
State derived its name. According to tradition, a tribe of 
Indians, driven southward by the advance of civiUzation, 
after many weeks of toilsome march, one day at sunset 
reached a lovely country, a sanctuary, unviolated by the 
remorseless white man, on the banks of a broad, calmly 
flowing river, where their canoes might ply, as the)^ hoped, 
unmolested for ages, in the skirts of a forest where the deer 
were sporting like tame kids. The chief struck the pole of 
his tent into the earth, exclaiming, "Alabama ! Alabama ! " 
(here we rest). Maybe, if I live, I shall come where you 
are, some day, to rest a little while, to lie still in the cool 
halls and have you read to me, or sing to me, bathe my fur- 
rowed brow or smooth away my sunburned hair. A little 
while to rest would be sweet to me, for I 'm tired, very, 
very weary, but there are many hundreds of long miles be- 
tween us and we must not be too sanguine in our hopes. 

Where do you suppose I am now ? Sitting in a tent, in 
the woods, among the tallest trees you ever saw, not very 
far from the fortifications of Vicksburg. All the time by 
night and day the cannon are pouring death and destruction 
upon the doomed city, yet its garrison gallantly holds out. 
On two successive days we tried to take it by assault, failing, 
because from the nature of the ground and the skill of their 
engineers, their works are wellnigh impregnable ; and more 
than two thousand brave soldiers have paid the penalty of 
the attempt with their lives. Now we invest the city, and 
if reinforcements do not come to them in sufiicient numbers 
to overpower us, we shall starve them out. Already are 
they reduced to one fourth rations ; their soldiers have a 
quarter of a pound of corn meal and no meat for a daj'^'s 
allowance. On some parts of the fortifications water is 
scarce, the weather is warm, and the sun scorching. They 
have been obliged to drive cattle and horses outside, because 



Letters 301 

they have nothing to feed them on. There are a great many- 
women and children in the city, and these have been com- 
pelled to retire to caves and holes in the ground to protect 
themselves from the ceaseless falling of shot and shell. As 
a special favor, three hundred of these women were permit- 
ted to cross the river to De Soto, a little way from where my 
old camp at Young's Point was, and there they remain 
under guard from the soldiers, without shelter of any kind 
and with very little, if any, food. Many of these are highly 
educated and refined ladies ; others of like character who 
were fortunate enough to be outside the city walls are men- 
dicants to the government they affect to despise so much, 
and now pensioners upon its bounty for food for themselves 
and children. But this is only part of the horrors of war. 
God grant, that you, my dear daughter, may never be called 
upon to view such scenes as I have witnessed. He has 
cursed the land and let loose the demon who demands blood, 
tears, and death as his sacrifice. Dearest, you must always 
thank God that your lines are cast in pleasant places ; you 
must remember how many and bountiful are the blessings 
showered upon you. 

I must tell you a little anecdote of my own experience, 
and in order to appreciate it, you must know that the route 
we marched over to reach this point had already been 
traversed by three armies, that everything eatable, and 
almost all to wear, had been pillaged from the houses that 
lined the road, for it is the habit of the soldier to take what 
he wants wherever he finds it ; and in hot pursuit, or quick 
retreat, or on the eve of impending battle, there is no one to 
gainsay him in his desires. Well, so it happened that I 
halted my brigade at Willow Springs to bivouac for the 
night, and at the earnest request of a lady, the wife of a 
physician, made their house my headquarters, for the pres- 
ence of the commanding officer is guarantee of protection. 
I had been seated upon the porch but a short time, when a 
sweet little girl of perhaps seven summers brought me a rose, 
and as I patted her head and fondled her, for she was very 
pretty and interesting, she lisped out, " If I had only a cracker 



302 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and some water I would go to bed, but I 'm very hungry and 
I can't sleep." " Why, my dear, have n't you had your 
supper? " " No, sir. I have n't had anything to eat all 
day, but if I just had a cracker and a little water, I could lie 
down." My supply wagon had n't come up, but there was 
about a biscuit of hardtack in pieces in my haversack, and 
this I gave the little child, who sat at my feet and ate it all 
with such famishing hunger. Oh ! it would have made your 
heart bleed to see these lambs, so visited for the sins of their 
fathers, these suffering, innocent little ones, no food, no 
shelter, no shoes, scarce raiment enough to cover their 
nakedness, though born to affluence. How long, Oh, I^ord ! 
how long ? 

As we came along the road, particularly after leaving 
Judge Perkins's, and skirted along Lake St. Joseph, one of 
the most beautiful sheets of water in the world, we passed 
magnificent plantations, principalities; and upon each of 
them a palace, gorgeously furnished with mirrors and velvet 
carpets, sumptuous furniture and upholstery of Eastern 
magnificence, with all the adjuncts of garden and green- 
house, dovecote, statuary, mausoleum, and Italian marbles 
in richest sculpture, marking the burial place of their dead. 
The roadside for miles and miles was strewn with all this in 
mutilation, carpets and curtains, grand pianos broken in 
pieces, pearl and ivory keys and strings all scattered, choice 
paintings cut from the frames, carried a little way, then 
torn and scattered to the winds, fences down, gardens 
trampled, the year's harvest gone utterly, frightened negroes 
peering from behind their quarters, far down the woodland 
glen, the relics of the flock, bleating piteously, soon the prey 
of the straggling soldier, the palaces burned or reft of all the 
beautiful that wealth and art and science could produce, the 
tomb desecrated and put to vile uses, and exquisite gardens 
the purlieus of the camp. Yet while we sigh for and repine 
at all this desolation and ruin, we can but reflect that he, for 
whose grandeur and magnificence all this wealth has been 
lavished, who has subsidized the world to minister to his 
taste and convenience, is a fugitive, perhaps in a foreign 
land, certainly with a paid substitute, who for gold is willing 



Letters 303 

to raise his unholy hand to tear asunder the fair fabric that 
guaranteed him all this opulence and luxury; and the lesson, 
so severe, perhaps, is needed. Yet we cannot forget it is 
written that oiBfences must come, but woe be to them by 
whom they come. 

On board Steamer " America," 

Mii^tiKEN's Bend, June 3, 1863. 
My dear Mother : 

' ' Once more upon the waters. ' ' Yesterday, by order of 
General Grant, through General Sherman, I left the front 
and, as president of a court, reported at this point. Yester- 
day and to-day I have been in command of a very fine steam- 
boat, only occupied by myself and suite, and shall retain 
command as long as I please, going and coming as I list. I 
hardly think an attack will soon be made by our forces, and 
the relief from the terrible suffering of the camp in the 
present season with scarcity of water can hardly be over- 
estimated. 

I to-day received your letter of 27th ult., with slips en- 
closed, and will endeavor to answer it and the others in 
inverse order. You have before this received news of my 
safe passage through the fiery furnace. My report accom- 
panying will be about the best version I can give of my 
' art of the affair, and then we will dismiss the subject with 
the sole remark that I wrote my report in the hot sun and 
under fire, seated upon a stump, in about two hours, and the 
draft I send you is not to say improved by the blundering 
stupidity of my clerk. Therefore, if it is not as artistic a 
production as you would like, you must blame the enemy, 
not me. I had as lieve write in a hornet's nest as anywhere 
within range of their sharpshooters, for they give an officer 
no peace, and don't have much regard for a private soldier. 

I don't think Rosecrans will go to the Potomac. I am 
very sure neither Grant nor Sherman will give the world 
any such evidence of insanity ; neither of the latter care 
much about being heroes — certainly not of the sort that army 
makes. General Grant told me he received your letter, 
which he complimented as being very patriotic, and was 



304 Thomas Kilby Smith 

surprised to learn I had a mother, having always classed 
me, I suppose, in the same category with " Topsy." Gen- 
eral Sherman might have received, read, and carried one 
from you in his pocket for six months, seeing me every day 
meanwhile, and yet not say a word about it, and then, at the 
end of six months recite the contents from memory — that 's 
his way. No doubt he received it. Both those gentlemen 
are always polite to me, both are doubtless my friends, as 
friendships go in the army ; but unless you see them as I do, 
you could form no conception of the magnitude of the enter- 
prise, the herculean labor they are forced to perform, the 
immense interests they have at their control; or the numbers 
who claim friendship with and acts of friendship from them. 
I have little right to claim more than my share and am 
abundantly satisfied if I receive even justice. They have 
both behaved very handsomely to me, and I think General 
Grant, in assigning me to my present very honorable and 
most responsible position, has been actuated by a desire to 
give me some relief even if only for a brief season ; that both 
he and Sherman feel keenly a regret that the Administration 
has overlooked me. I certainly have nothing to complain 
of, nobody to find fault with, unless the President of the 
United States, and doubtless there are many far more worthy 
than I am who suffer in silence. 

On board Steamer "Armenia," ^ 
Yazoo River, near Haines's Bi,uff, June 15, 1863. 

My dear Wife : 

I have just returned from the completion of my labors 
upon a Court of Inquiry at Milliken's Bend. While there I 
witnessed and had to take some part in a very bloody fight, 
in which three negro regiments repulsed a largely superior 
force of the enemy. The conflict was desperate, hand to 
hand, the blacks proving incontestably that they are brave. 
I suppose some account of the afiair will get into the news- 
papers. 

The siege of Vicksburg progresses without material change 



Letters 305 

within the past few days. The bombardment is incessant ; 
always we hear the booming of heavy guns, not seldom the 
sharp rattle of musketry ; our approaches are constant ; she 
must fall, perhaps in a week, perhaps not for months. 
Heavy reinforcements from above have reached us ; more 
are coming. 

Headquarters Fifteenth Army Corps, 

WaIvNUT Hii,IvS, near Vicksburg, June 17, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

You must not doubt General Sherman's friendship for me ; 
he is the soul of honor, the bravest, truest, loyal heart that 
ever beat. Not his to betray. I am sure he means just 
what he writes to you. I know, had it been in his power, 
my promotion would long since have been made. It would 
be long for me to explain to you the intricate machinery of 
an army, or the peculiar and despotic laws by which it is 
governed; friendship, even from those high in rank, avails 
but little. What I say of General Sherman equally applies 
to General Grant ; the latter has not been profuse in his ex- 
pressions of friendship, but has given me the most convincing 
proof that he admires, esteems, and respects me ; his verbal 
and written endorsement is all I could ask. You request me 
to have a personal interview with him. I smile. For there 
is hardly a day when I am near his headquarters that I do 
not see him. He never goes to the table at meal time, when 
I am about, that the irvvitation is not extended to me ; he 
and his staff, with all of whom I am on the most intimate 
terms, are always polite. General Grant has frequently 
done me the honor to ask me my advice. My opinion upon 
grave matters has been taken as law by him. He knows me 
very well, and exactly my position. He would be rejoiced 
to greet me as Major-General, but he, like Sherman, has no 
power to confer rank. No colonel in the corps, I am quite 
sure, has had the courtesy, kindness, consideration and in- 
dulgence that has been granted by both these generals to 
me. I am very grateful to them for that which I have no 
right to demand. Remember, I am serving my country, not 



3o6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

either of them ; that the privileges of rank give wide dis- 
parity, that aside from myself and my own claims, which, 
after all, are meagre, for kind fortune has not yet given me 
opportunity for brilliant achievements ; there are hundreds, 
thousands, who have claims for faithful service, to say noth- 
ing of those who lie under the sod, or those other dear 
martyrs, who, maimed and crippled, offer their bleeding 
bodies in testimony. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tenn., 

Near Vicksburg, Miss., June 22, 1863, 

I am ordered upon special and delicate business which may 
cause me absence from headquarters and mail facilities for 
some da3's and perhaps some weeks, and write now that you 
may not be worried, if you do not hear from me with the 
usual regularity, and in any event to reassure you from any 
fears for my personal safety. 

I have been for a week or more past in close and intimate, 
I may say almost confidential communication with General 
Grant ; not detached by formal order from my regimental 
command, but virtually for temporary purposes. I don't 
know what my future status in the army may be. You 
must not expect me home soon ; perhaps not till the political 
aspect in Ohio demands the presence of troops there, which 
from recent events, I conjecture is a time not far distant. 

In my letter covering the copy of my official report of the 
recent engagement I forwarded you some time since, I forgot 
to give you special caution not to publish the same ; never 
show or publish, except to confidential friends, anything of 
an official character I may send for your edification. The 
rule upon this matter is peremptory with the War Depart- 
ment, and must be respected. 

Vicksburg is sure to be ours I think not very many days 
hence ; how long, no one can tell, but it is most surel}^ in- 
vested. Its garrison is slowlj^ but surely wearing out. John- 
ston's movements are mysterious ; we are always prepared 
for him. 



Letters 307 

McClernand . . . is at last superseded. We are most 
thankful ; it will doubtless raise a good deal of a breeze. 

P. S. — I enclose a slip ; in many respects the account is 
defective, in all partial ; take it as a whole, it gives a more 
fair account than any I have seen in the papers of the affair. 
My report is in all respects strictly true. I fought under 
General Grant's own eye ; his report was submitted to, and 
pronounced upon by General Sherman before I forwarded it. 
The great attack was made on the 29th ; that is the first 
attack. You will hardly credit what I am about to write, 
but it is also strictly true, that the attack of that day was 
made by two thirds of one tenth of the whole force of Grant. 
That is, the Second Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, 
General Sherman, was the only one who obeyed the order ; 
and what I am about to write will be testified to by General 
Ewing of the Third Brigade, only that the Second Brigade, 
the 13th Regulars of the First Brigade, and two regiments of 
the Third Brigade were all that went in. In point of fact, 
save by the 13th Regulars, I was alone and unsupported. 
The history of these matters will some day be given to the 
world, truthful, unvarnished. 

Well, as a whole, this account is fair enough and worth 
reading. But no account, written or verbal, can give any- 
body the slightest conception of the affair ; you might as well 
try to describe the falls of Niagara. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tenn., 

Near Vicksburg, June 27, 1863. 

I mentioned in a former letter having received General 
Sherman's to you. I cannot see how he could, in language 
that would not have been fulsome, have given more expres- 
sion of feelings of friendship toward me ; other than those 
feelings I have no right or reason to demand. He is per- 
fectly sincere, and I believe would rejoice at my success. 
He cannot make it for me, I must do that for myself, through 



3o8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the aid of God by my own merit, if I possess. These things 
are all hard for you to understand. The science of the sol- 
dier and the art of war, obtaining in this fearful strife, differ 
from all that experience or reading have given you knowledge 
of. The ordinary springs to human action in a measure fail. 
We are brought to greater exactness of action. An army 
is a vast machine of which each individual is an integral 
part. Shiftings and change cannot easily be made without 
disarrangement of the whole, never after a certain point, 
save by direction of the chief of all. Thus I report to Gen- 
eral lyightburn, he to General Blair, he to General Sherman, 
he to General Grant, he to General Halleck, he to the Sec- 
retary of War, who in his turn goes to the Commander-in- 
Chief, the President. But till you get to General Halleck, 
that I have given illustration of, is onlj^ one of a series of 
systems aggregating a vast whole. Now, General Sher- 
man's' power is really very limited ; he has no appoicting 
power ; he can only recommend to his superior ofl&cers, and 
how often has he done this for me ! He is no more responsi- 
ble for my misfortune than he would have been for wounds 
and death in battle. Some favors may always be granted 
by superior officers ; these favors have been lavishly ex- 
tended to me by all of mine who are in the field, by none 
more liberally than by General Sherman. His bed, his 
table, his wines, cigars, everything has been placed at my 
disposal. He has shared my blanket and laid him down 
by my side in the bivouac before the dread day of battle. 
He did this on the night of the i8th, before the first bloody 
assault. We have been baptized in blood together. He 
is not an affectionate man, but on the contrary, austere 
and forbidding. He never meets me without a glad smile 
and a warm pressure of the hand. You must not doubt 
him. It was not by General Grant's order that I was as- 
signed as president of the court that sat at Milliken's Bend ; 
but because I had intimated to Colonel Rawlins, A. A. Gen., 
that I had not reported back to my regiment and wanted 
something to do. The service was temporary, and has long 
since been performed and reported upon. While presiding 
at the court, I became an actor to some extent in the affair 



Letters 309 

at the Bend when the negro regiments were attacked, and 
officially made some report of the matter to General Grant. 
Out of that matter grew a necessity for other and important 
service which I was assigned to, and thus I have gone along 
from day to day, hardly anticipating a permanent charge till 
after the reduction of Vicksburg. I cannot tell what they 
are doing at Washington. Mr. Chase has small power in the 
War Department. I have reason to believe I was nominated 
before my papers arrived, and before active influence was 
made for me, and that I lapsed with several score of others, 
from excess of numbers and the insignificance of my name ; 
so common a name is a greater barrier to success than can 
be imagined by those who are not fellow sufferers. If Grant 
is successful, I still hope there is something bright for me, 
if not, I must do my duty, unmurmuring, if hopeless. If I 
perish without the glittering surrounding of rank, I trust I 
shall be able to die like a soldier. 

You speak of the little diary I sent you as if it was im- 
portant. I thought it might be of some interest to the chil- 
dren as showing something of life on the march, and the 
eflfects of war, but considered it hardly worthy of second 
perusal. I am surprised you should have thought it worth 
while to send East what was only meant for the home circle. 
You need give yourself no uneasiness about my deprivation 
from exercise and my removal from the saddle. I was but a 
brief time on the steamboat, and my feet are oftener in the 
stirrup than on the ground. 

You will still compliment my letters. You read them with 
a loving mother's eyes, too partial a judge. I see so much 
I cannot write. If I could seize opportunity, and describe 
what I should so much like to describe as it passes before me 
and when the fit is on, I might write something worthy. 
But as time passes, new events obliterate the recollection 
even of old excitement, and the excitement of yesterday is 
old with us to-day. I wrote you in my last letter that I had 
been detailed on delicate service, and prepared you for what 
I thought might be a prolonged absence. The occasion was 
my going with a small escort under a flag of truce which was 
a feint to meet or endeavor to meet General Taylor, one of 



3IO Thomas Kilby Smith 

the commanders of the rebel forces. With this object I took 
a steamboat at Milliken's Bend on the 22d. Debarking 
there at daybreak, rode to Richmond, or what was once 
Richmond, twelve miles distant, and there found the bridge 
burned. I ought to say that after the fight at Milliken's 
Bend, the enemy fell back to Richmond, and there en- 
trenched themselves. That we sent out forces to dislodge 
them, that they were defeated, driven out, and the town, a 
very pretty place containing some two thousand inhabitants, 
court house, jail, large hotel, etc., was burned ; nothing that 
was inflammable was left ; everything but the bricks and 
mortar was consumed. The enemy before retreating had 
burned the bridge themselves, and so, from its charred re- 
mains, I was compelled to construct another, to cover the 
deep bayou. Some two hours' labor effected this object, and 
with a bit of cracker and coffee, made in a tin cup, for break- 
fast, forward we went, and oh ! how desolate was the country 
we crossed, and how dreary the ride ! The fleeing enemy 
had been panic-stricken, and all along the road for miles had 
thrown the loads from the wagons and sometimes abandoned 
the wagons themselves. Bedsteads and mirrors, glass, 
crockery, bags of meal, clothing, sewing machines, baskets, 
boxes, and trunks, with pots, pans, and camp equipage, lay 
promiscuously scattered. But the most noticeable objects 
were the corpses of the unburied dead, smoked and black- 
ened in the sun, too carrion even for the vultures and 
buzzards. At every bayou crossing, bridges torn up and 
fresh delays. Finally I reached the Tensas, twenty miles. 
Here, too, the bridge was burned, but on the other side was 
a house giving promise of water. The baj^ou water is not 
drinkable, and we were parched with thirst. A woman ap- 
peared on the opposite bank to show us the ford, and this 
was strange, for we were far inside the enemy's lines. A 
struggle through the mud, a ford almost a swim, and we 
were over. The woman fairly cried with joy to see us — the 
first real, genuine Union woman I have met in the South. 
Her husband was under the ban and on our side ; he was 
poor and had been hauling cotton for transportation North 
— an unpardonable sin, and she had been made to suffer. 



Letters 311 

Along with four young children, she had been persecuted by 
the retreating army, and no wonder she over flowed with joy 
when her friends came in sight. She gave me some butter- 
milk and some eggs, and after resting an hour, on we went. 
Soon the enemy's pickets were in sight, but instead of ap- 
proaching, seemed to be fleeing. In vain the sergeant waved 
his flag, conspicuous enough, for it was a sheet borrowed 
from the steamboat berth and tied to a pole. As we marched 
forward they marched back, until at last they fairly made a 
run for it ; thereupon we halted and tried another coaxing 
process, and at last, after making various signs, they ap- 
proached or rather waited our coming with the timidity of 
young fawns. We explained the nature of our flag ; they were 
very glad to know we were not going to fight them, and said 
they had watched us from Richmond and hovered in our front 
all the way those ten long miles and had sent back for rein- 
forcements, and had come near shooting one of our men who 
had stopped to take the water out of his boot at the ford. We 
reassured them and rode forward for about the space of a 
mile, when we were encountered by the reinforcements, dis- 
mounted, drawn up in line of battle. Their captain was 
stupid, and after the pickets had informed him we were a 
flag of truce, he insisted upon mistaking us for rebels, and 
boring us with the most absurd questions about the strength 
of Grant's army, the condition of affairs at Vicksburg, etc. 
At last we drove it through liis head that we were Yankees, 
as they call us, and as soon as light broke through upon him, 
he became dumb with astonishment ; nevertheless we 
marched forward well enough for four miles and then 
stopped to camp. We continued winding through the dense 
woods by the side of bayous or *the shores of little lakes 
until at last, crossing another bridge, we encountered another 
picket. It was interesting to us to pass this picket, for it 
was near nightfall, the rain began to come down heavily ; 
we had ridden some thirty-two or three miles and were near 
Delhi, where we expected to find General Taylor and a 
pretty large force of the enemy. But they halted us and I 
came to a parley. The officer was peremptor>\ I brought 
a stunning argument to bear— that I had been permitted by 



3 1 2 Thomas Kilby Smith 

all the other picket guards to pass, why should he refuse, 
and by what authority — at last prevailed, and on to Delhi. 
Three or four miles brought us to the camp guard of the out- 
side regiment. We had penetrated thirty-six miles inside of 
the enemy's lines since morning. They looked on us with 
wonder and astonishment, called no halt, and on we went 
right through their camps. The soldiers gathered in groups 
by the wayside to gape at us ; the oflScers ran out of their 
tents ; my escort was only ten men and a sergeant. We 
enquired the way to headquarters and reported to the com- 
mandant, and demanded to see General Taylor. General 
Taylor was not there. This was what I wanted and hoped 
for, for I knew if he was not at Delhi he must be at Monroe, 
sixty-five miles further up, and I wanted to penetrate the 
country as far as possible. Meanwhile it had rained very 
hard, and was still raining. We were wet through. The 
question of quarters was interesting, for it was almost dark. 
The commandant evidently did not know what to do. I 
suggested the hotel. He brightened, and we were permitted 
to go there and seek quarters. They did not know how to 
receive a flag. Their pickets ought not to have let us pass 
without first reporting and disarming us ; but there we were 
and there was no help for it. Now imagine a small town 
with a railway passing through, scattered houses and a large 
square frame hotel, your son followed by his troops and a 
crowd of soldiers, ofiicers, citizens, old and young, all agape 
with astonishment ; evening, and muddy. Landlord comes 
out uncertain whether to receive us or not ; anxious for his 
pocket, more anxious for his house. At last the pecuniary 
prevails, and he thinks he can make provision for us, but 
can't for the horses. Under shelter, and immediately after- 
wards under strict guard and surveillance : got some sup- 
per, corn bread, fresh pork, and something they call coffee, 
made of parched wheat. After supper the commandant 
called and demanded the despatches ; refused to deliver 
them, on the ground that my orders were peremptory to de- 
liver them to General Tajdor in person. The commandant, 
a Major Beattie from Texas, was green and nonplussed ; 
he did n't know what to do, finally concluded to put us 



Letters 3 1 3 

under guard and himself in telegraphic communication 
with General Taylor. At last I got rid of him and went 
to bed, wet through to my buff, and got a sound sleep, 
to wake and find mj^self close prisoner in the camp of 
the enemy ; breakfast, the duplicate of the supper, and 
after the breakfast the show began. I seated myself on the 
upper porch and the ' ' butternuts ' ' passed in review. Some 
citizens came to talk to me, some officers. The same old 
story of what you read in the newspapers — ' ' they are united, 
intend to fight till the last man is dead, ' ' and all that sort of 
thing. Finally, Brigadier- General Legee, Aide-de-Camp of 
General Taylor, made his appearance, and now I found I 
had to deal with a soldier and a man of sense. Of course I 
was baffled, as I expected to be. He insisted upon my de- 
spatches and my return ; no further penetration to their 
stronghold except at the head of an army. I was satisfied, 
however, for I had informed myself upon the principal point 
I was after. So I delivered my despatches with as good 
grace as possible, and received the necessary returns. I 
found General Legee, aside from his politics, to be a fine 
soldier and a most admirable gentleman. He had graduated 
at Cambridge, and afterwards read law there ; had spent 
some time in Cincinnati, and knew a good many of my 
friends . . . and in short, we soon found we were old 
acquaintances almost, and sat down to have a good time ; 
that is, as good a time as gentlemen can expect to have 
without wine or anything else but water to drink and no 
cigars to smoke ; nevertheless, we had a comfortable chat. 
He made my imprisonment as light as possible; and next 
morning with an escort from the enemy we retraced our steps 
without adventure, stopped at Richmond, or the cisterns of 
Richmond rather, for water and a bite. While the men were 
resting, I wandered through the gardens ; they could not 
burn them, but what a picture of desolation they presented. 
For the first time flowers seemed out of place, the fruit, apri- 
cots, peaches, and grapes, was just ripening. Some frightened, 
superannuated negroes came up to gape, and I hurried away 
from the smouldering ruins after extorting from them a 
promise to go out and bury the dead upon consideration that 



314 Thomas Kilby Smith 

they should possess themselves of all the property abandoned 
on the road. Back to the Bend, and rapidly put the same in 
a state of defence, for unless I had checkmated them, they had 
calculated to come in. When I say they or them I always 
mean the enemy, the only terms almost by which we know 
them. On board a boat at 7 p.m. ; found a sick lady who had 
taken refuge with her servants, reassured and encouraged 
her ; down to General Dennis to report. Sat with him till 
two o'clock in the morning, then up the Yazoo ; out at day- 
break, and reported to General Grant at breakfast time. 
Yesterday I rested, for I was a little tired, and to-day am 
anticipating an order to go to Grand Gulf to report to Gen- 
eral Banks with despatches, and while I rest I write you this 
tedious letter. You may see by it at least that the grass 
does not grow under my feet. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tennessee, 

Camp opposite Vicksburg, June 30, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

You are mistaken in supposing I had a new command 
given me. I explained the matter to mother in a former 
letter — a temporary detail as president of a court which 
ceased when the court adjourned. I have since, however, 
been employed upon most important business which has kept 
me from my regiment. This morning I shall go down to 
Port Hudson in a steamboat to confer with General Banks 
upon official business. I am glad you liked my report. I 
wrote it very hurriedly on the battlefield, in pencil, and in 
something over two hours, and have not seen it since, so I 
can hardly judge how it read. The country will hardly ever 
get the true history of the assault of the 19th, because it is 
the interest of the whole army, except the small portion, 
two thirds of one tenth, to suppress it. Thus there are ten 
divisions of infantry ; but one of these divisions obeyed the 
order to charge, and of that division but one whole brigade, 
my own, went in, with two regiments from Ewing, and one 
from Giles Smith. I enclose a slip which is partly truthful 



Letters 3 1 5 

in other matters and wortli reading, and in which an allusion 
is made to what the opinion of the rebel ofl&cers was of that 
charge. They have spoken of it very often, and I assure 
you it was a most gallant, daring action. The conflict is 
raging here all the time, we think it hardly possible Vicks- 
burg can hold out much longer, though they fight with per- 
fect desperation and probably will fight to the last. Still 
there is an end to all things and there must some time be an 
end to this siege — only patience is left to us. You must not 
be alarmed for me. I have been in many dangers and 
always preserved. My life may yet be of some service to 
my country or my family. 

I made General Grant a present of one of my saddle horses 
the other day, a splendid piebald gelding, that I think is 
worth a thousand dollars. He was a horse that I captured 
at Arkansas Post with his rider, a Texan officer, and since 
that time I have been carefully training him. He is very 
large and spotted white and black with a noble carriage and 
easy gait. Grant fell in love with him a long time ago, and 
talked so much about him that I gave him. He always 
rides him, although he has other fine horses. 

I shall hope in my next letter to be able to give you 
something of interest connected with General Banks's army 
and its operations. 



HEADQUARTERS DEPT. OF THE TENNESSEE, 

ViCKSBURG, July II, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

I have just debarked on my return from Port Hudson 
and finished my report to General Grant. I am ordered 
back to Natchez, for which point I shall start at eight 
o'clock in the morning, so have brief time for communica- 
tion with you. On the ist inst., by order of General Grant, 
I reported to Admiral Porter for transportation to Port 
Hudson, whither I was going as bearer of despatches and 



3 1 6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

oral communication from General Grant to General Banks. 
You are probably not aware of what a flagship is or the sort 
of style they preserve on board of one. The Black Hawk, 
Admiral Porter's, is probably behind none of them in point 
of elegance, and the Admiral, who is a special friend of 
mine, always receives me with all the honors. 

From the flagship I reported to General Dennis at Young's 
Point, and then procured an ambulance to take us around 
by land to where the gunboat Arizona was lying, the vessel 
that had been assigned to me. I have had command before 
of a good many steamboats, but never of a vessel of war. 
The Arizona is a beautiful little craft, a yacht, elegantly 
fitted up, trim built, with everything ship-shape in real man- 
of-war style. She was formerly of the Southern Steamship 
Line between New Orleans and Galveston, seized by the 
rebels in 1861, ran the blockade to Havana with a cargo of 
cotton, recaptured by Admiral Farragut's squadron in 1862 
ofi" Mobile — at this time running under Confederate colors 
and called the Carolina, and commanded by Captain Forbes. 
On seeing the Admiral, Captain Forbes claimed to be bound 
to Matamoras, but the Admiral remarked to him, " I do not 
take you for running the blockade, but for your damned 
poor navigation. Any man bound to Matamoras from 
Havana and coming within twelve miles of Mobile light has 
no business to have a steamer." Accordingly, she was sent 
to Philadelphia as a prize, being purchased by the govern- 
ment for 86,000 dollars. She was speedily altered into a 
gunboat and early in 1863 was put in commission. Leaving 
Philadelphia she captured a prize of about $140,000 in value 
on the fourth day out. Arrived at New Orleans on April ist, 
she sailed for Brashear City on the 6th, took two regiments of 
Major-General Banks on board and landed them at Grand 
Lakes, the next morning fought and destroyed the Queen of 
the West, and the day after proceeded to the wreck and re- 
covered all the guns, two fine Parrott rifles, and three 
twelve-pounder Porterfield pieces, brass. On April 20th at- 
tacked, in company with the Clifton, the fortifications at Butte 
La Rose, silenced the battery in twelve minutes, capturing 



Letters 317 

the guns, ammunition, 114 prisoners, and the small arms. 
On the . . . day of ... , attacked, in company with 
the Albatross, and repulsed the enemy's gunboats at Fort de 
Russy, but owing to some misunderstanding of orders was 
not permitted to remain and destroy them. The day after 
proceeded upon the expedition with Admiral Porter towards 
Alexandria, and on the . . . day of . . . , the 
city surrendered to Captain Upton, a very wealthy citizen 
and one of influence there, and a grandson of Putnam 
of revolutionary memory ; he who killed the wolf in the 
cave, and about that anecdote the boys may read. I have 
been somewhat prolix in describing the boat and her com- 
mander, because my relations with both have been very 
intimate the last ten days, and because she is again assigned 
to me to go to Natchez. I lay on her with the fleet under 
the guns of Vicksburg till the 22d inst. ; early in the morn- 
ing weighed anchor and down stream, destroying all river 
transportation as we passed along — all boats, skiffs, flats, 
etc. Met the gunboat Louisville at Grand Gulf, got some 
news from below, most favorable, touched at St. Joseph, 
and put off Mrs. Rodgers. Her meeting with her daughter 
and under such circumstances, was a scene affecting in 
the extreme. They had not seen each other for more than 
four years— are ladies of the greatest refinement. Tak- 
ing advantage of circumstances while the scene was tran- 
spiring, ordered the men to load the boat with vegetables, 
meats and poultry ; in other words, foraged extensively. 
Such is war. Got under weigh, and steamed down to the 
next plantation, where we stopped all night, it being too 
dark to move. Here we called at the house and found a 
pretty and interesting young lady, much chit chat and quar- 
relling about the war, and while we quarrelled, my men drove 
brisk trade with the negroes for honey, tomatoes, melons, 
fowl, etc. Under weigh at eight o'clock, steaming down, 
still destroying as we go. Touched at Mrs. Duncan's planta- 
tion, abandoned, and in the hands of negroes ; will endeavor 
to send with this some memento of the occasion. As we 
reached Natchez, discovered cattle in large numbers that had 
just crossed the river ; ordered shell from twelve-pound 



3 1 8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

howitzer thrown among them ; cattle scattered and drivers 
fled. Ordered the boat to round to and sent a missive to the 
civil authorities that if they permitted the transit of cattle or 
other munitions of war for the use of the enemy, I would 
burn and destroy the city. To that missive I received the 
following reply : 

" Mayor's Office, Natchez, July 3, 1863. 
" Sir : 

" Your communication of this date is duly at hand. The 
city authorities regret that you conceive it necessary to in- 
flict such a penalty as you name upon the defenceless inhabi- 
tants of this city for acts of which they are innocent and over 
which the city authorities have no control. To avert the 
calamity, however, we will represent your demand to the 
military authorities without delay. At the same time we 
would observe with due deference, that we are at a loss to 
understand how the destruction of the city will accomplish 
the object you have in view. 

' ' Respectfully, your obt. Servant, 

" W. Dix, Mayor. 
" Thos. K11.BY Smith, 

" Colonel ..." 

Not liking the tone of the above despatch, I proceeded to 
carry my threat into execution, when down came the marshal 
and begged like a dog. I gave my opinion and ipse dixit 
in no very measured terms, and taking a promise, wended 
my way, destroying, however, some sixty skiffs and fleets 
at that point. Anchored in stream at nine o'clock, July 
4th ; under way at twelve o'clock ; touched at plantation 
for wood and forage, vegetables, etc. Nine o'clock reached 
Port Hudson and reported to Commodore Palmer on board 
sloop-of-war Hartford, anchored off stream. Commodore stiff 
old salt of the old school — about as stiff I suppose as Uncle 
Hunter was on board ship. Took on, however, in behalf of 
the army, about the same quantity of airs as he took for the 
navy, and imagine he did not make much by the interview 
in the way of airs. Next day, July 5th, reported to steamer 
Albatross, the captain of which sent ashore for horses for me. 



Letters 



319 



and about ten o'clock got mounted, with my orderly, on a 
sorry jade said to have belonged to a Secesh. colonel who had 
been taken prisoner. Set ofif for General Banks's headquarters, 
about twenty miles distant. Sun blazing hot, waded swamp, 
passed by bayou, and lagoon, and through dense forests, 
heard the alligators barking like young puppies. Saw sugar 
cane growing for the first time, passed sugar mills, close to 
enemy's pickets, and just enough of danger to make the 
jaunt spicy and interesting. Sun broiling ; wore cloth cap 
and felt it ; should have been sunstruck, but adopted my old 
precaution of stuffing the crown with fresh green leaves every 
now and then — a most cooling application to the head. Glad 
enough to reach General Banks's headquarters at two o'clock, 
after a ride of four hours ; dismounted thirsty and exhausted. 
General met me with great courtesy — bottle of champagne 
and plenty of ice, cool goblet ; oh, how refreshing ! . . . 
felt sufficiently better to take a nap of an hour, and then 
the General, by way of amusement, invited me to ride with 
him and staff over the left of his lines ; gave me a good 
mount, and off we started for a thirty miles' ride and about 
five miles ' walk through the saps and mines of his ap- 
proaches upon the fortifications, back at eleven o'clock, 
supped and laid down at twelve. Clothes wet through 
with sweat, did not sleep well, rose, however, early in the 
morning, July 6th. . . . Breakfast over, General invited 
me to ride on the right, horses saddled and off at seven. 
Rode far and walked through more miles of sap and made 
close investigation of mines ; two men shot through the 
head by rifle balls close by my side ; sharpshooters on both 
sides vigilant and alert. Called upon one or two generals, 
back to camp and dinner by two o'clock. Admiral Farragut 
made his appearance before dinner was through. . . . 
I imagine rather a clever man and a fine officer. . . . 

July 7th received despatches of the fall of Vicksburg, per 
telegraph, despatch boat Price having got aground on her 
way down ; much enthusiasm. Army fired salutes of an 
hundred guns ; also navy; drank General Grant's health ; 
took good care to have a despatch intercepted by the enemy, 
and devoted the afternoon to close investigation of saps, 



320 Thomas Kilby Smith 

mines, and approaclies on the right of our lines, in company 
with General Banks ; back to camp, and late to bed ; hardly 
asleep before General Banks made his appearance at my bed- 
side in shirt and drawers to advise me that General Gardner 
had sent flag of truce, and to ask if what he had heard in 
reference to the fall of Vicksbtirg was true. Symptomatic ; 
immediately volunteered to go with flag of truce myself and 
make proper reply. Rode out at one o'clock, nine miles ; 
passed our pickets, sounded bugle call, and shortly afterwards 
was met by enemy's flag with lanthorn. Their party con- 
sisted of two colonels and their aides-de-camp ; had with 
them much parley ; flag returned, to consult with General 
Gardner ; agreed to wait for them two hours. Flag again 
appeared with despatches for General Banks and overtures 
for surrender. Back to headquarters at great speed. Gen- 
eral Gardiner writes that he has defended his post as long 
as he considers his duty and offers terms and to appoint 
commissioners to meet outside of breastworks to arrange con- 
ditions. Accordingly, General Banks appointed Brigadier- 
General Stone, Brigadier-General Dwight, and Colonel 
Burge commissioners, with instructions to demand uncon- 
ditional surrender. They were met by Colonel Miles, Col. 
Marshall Smith, and Colonel Steadman, on behalf of the 
enemy. All the day passed tediously, waiting the action of 
the commissioners. Finally, at nightfall, they made their 
report. Garrison to be surrendered at seven o'clock the 
following morning, and a rough estimate of results of the 
Port Hudson capture is as follows : 

Upwards of five thousand prisoners, including one major- 
general, one brigadier-general, four colonels, and large 
number of field and company ofiicers. 

Thirty-one field cannon ; 

Twenty S. C. and siege cannon ; 

Major-Gen. Frank Gardner, formerly U. S. A. ; 

Brigadier- General William Beale ; 

Colonel Miles ; 

Col. Marshall Smith, formerly U. S. Navy ; 

Colonel Steadman ; 

Major A. Marchent, formerly U. S. Artillery. 



Letters 321 



Despatches were at once prepared for me, and at nine 
o'clock, with escort, I set oflf to ride over the same road. I 
came to place of hail of gunboats. It was intensely dark 
and raining hard ; some miles of road through dense and 
muddy swamp ; had to search for pathway by aid of lantern ; 
guide at fault and way lost ; outside of picket lines, and great 
danger of capture ; found way and reached Mississippi shore 
at three o'clock in morning. Hailed Hartford, and got 
aboard ; reported to Commodore Palmer ; had Arizoyia as- 
signed me ; got aboard of her by the light of the wild-eyed 
dawn, and at four o'clock laid down with intense headache 
to court sleep, which had been a stranger to me for two days 
and two nights. I had been much exposed to sun and 
feared sickness. I lay still for one hour and am then called 
upon by naval officers anxious for news ; a thousand ques- 
tions about Port Hudson ; no rest ; under weigh at eight 
o'clock, and shortly afterwards breakfast. . . . The cap- 
tain has a pet, a beautiful doe, with whom I made friends com- 
ing down, and as I returned, with her large black dreamy eyes, 
she was apparently glad to see me and gave me welcome by 
licking my hand. She walks all over the ship perfectly tame, 
and it seems strange to me that an animal so wild and timid by 
nature should become so fond and gentle. The day is calm 
and perfectly beautiful, the bright blue sky dappled with 
fleecy clouds, the rapid motion of the boat stirs the atmos- 
phere till it fans the cheek with voluptuous freshness. 
Fatigue passes away. I am the bearer of glad tidings of 
great joy, and with heart elate sail triumphant. For the 
time being, brief as it may seem, I govern on the quarter- 
deck of the yacht, and save for the presence of Cleopatra, 
rival Antony. The day wears on, and at six I am invited 
to dinner. The captain and I mess alone, but with the 
strictest formality. . . . 

Anchored in the stream at eleven o'clock ; too dark to run. 
Friday, July loth, weigh anchor, and steam up at four o'clock; 
pass Natchez at 9 a.m. Many cattle on the bank — evidently 
have been crossed for the use of the rebel armj^ — some two 
thousand head. Heave a dozen shell and send some rifle 



32 2 Thomas Kilby Smith 

balls among them. Crowds of men and women gather on 
the bluflfs of Natchez to see us pass. We take on negroes 
from point to point as they rush to the river side, stalwart 
men seeking liberty under the folds of the American flag. 
We hail a skiff" containing six parolled prisoners from Vicks- 
burg ; they have floated down the river and are seeking their 
homes at Natchez and up the river. Much cannon practice 
from our vessel I propose, to prevent all crossing of the river, 
and to dismay the inhabitants. I find my hearing much 
affected by close proximity the past two or three months to 
heavy guns while being rapidly discharged. We meet many 
vessels from Vicksburg, seven gunboats ; the Mississippi is 
open. 

I hold to-day conversation with captain's Calcutta servant, 
an Hindostanee ; speaks and writes Arabic, is a follower of 
Mahomet. If my memory serves me right, the first Mussul- 
man I have made acquaintance with, tall, not quite black, 
straight nose, thin lips, handsome. I hear the Arabic lan- 
guage spoken in its purity, I believe, for he is educated, and 
also the Hindostanee. He has travelled throughout China ; 
perfectly familiar with Canton, Calcutta, Paris, London, 
Boston, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Australia, 
the South Sea and Pacific Islands, San Francisco, and the 
Havannah, and for the most part North America ; was a 
follower of Nana Sahib, and is not twenty years old. 

Saturday, July nth, anchor at four o'clock, having moved 
all night opposite Mrs. Fanars, at the town of St. Joseph ; 
called upon the ladies, who are in great distress, husbands 
and fathers being all under arrest at Alton . . . Comfort 
the poor women all I can, and here I may say to-night I have 
got an order from General Grant to release their poor devils 
of husbands — so that must be set to my credit, if I am a fiend 
and a ' ' damned Yank. ' ' To-day meet more gunboats, more 
parolled prisoners in skiffs. Day cool and pleasant. 

Abner Read was shot and mortally wounded the day I left 
Port Hudson ; he was badly shot, and could not possibly re- 
cover. He was commander and a good deal thought of by 
the navy. Wife will remember him ; he was a brother of the 
judge. 



Letters 323 

Well, we arrived at Vicksburg about four o'clock this 
afternoon ; reported to the Admiral and to General Grant ; 
both glad to see me back and hear my news, and on the 
strength of my report am ordered to take some transports 
and some troops and garrison Natchez. I shall set sail for 
that point in the morning at eight o'clock, and am writing 
for dear life to-night in order to get ready. 

Headquarters U. S. Forces, 

Natchez, Miss., July 19, 1863. 
My Dear Wife : 

To-day is Sunday, one week since I wrote you from Vicks- 
burg. I had then just returned from Port Hudson, and a 
reconnoissance of the river, bringing with me the news of 
the reduction or rather surrender of Port Hudson, and de- 
spatches from General Banks. Having impressed upon 
General Grant the importance of occupying this point, I was 
sent back to take possession of Natchez, by aid of General 
Ransom and his brigade. This was accomplished without 
opposition, to the immense and mingled surprise, grief, and 
indignation of the people, as well as oflScers and soldiers 
whom we took as prisoners. We captured some five thou- 
sand head of fine cattle, three thousand of which we have 
shipped to Port Hudson and to Vicksburg. We captured 
and destroyed large quantities of ordnance and ordnance 
stores, and great numbers of small arms. We are in the 
process of taking large quantities of sugar, molasses, corn, 
and cotton, belonging to the so-called Confederate govern- 
ment ; also immense quantities of lumber, at this time of 
large value to our army. Our occupation has been most 
fertile in results. The plan of operations was suggested, 
and carried into effect by me. I shall never be known in it 
to the world at large, nor is it of vast moment, but it has 
been an expedition fraught with success, and I congratulate 
myself at least, so let it pass. 

Natchez is a beautiful little city of about seven thousand 
or eight thousand inhabitants, a place for many years past 
of no great business significance, but rather a congregation 



324 Tho7nas Kilby S7nith 

of wealthy planters and retired merchants and professional 
men, who have built magnificent villas, along the bluffs of 
the river and in the rear, covering for the city a large space 
of ground. Wealth and taste, a most genial climate and 
kindly soil have enabled them to adorn these in such man- 
ner as almost to give the Northerner his realization of a fairy 
tale. Tourists, who, in times past, have visited the South, 
have usually selected winter as the season for their journey- 
ings, and for the most part, have confined themselves to the 
limits of city and steamboat. They have told us little of 
rural life amid the opulent of the South, their efibrts give 
but faint ideas of the clime or country. The grand luxuri- 
ance of foliage and flower and fruit of which this sunny clime 
can boast, has been denied them, and is seen in its perfection 
now and where my footsteps lead me. 

The house of . . . where I have been quartered for 
the past week, is one of the largest and most elegantly 
appointed mansions in all the South. Any description that 
I can give of its superb appointments will be but feeble. 
The proprietor counts his plantations by the dozens, his 
slaves by the thousands, those people, I mean, who were his 
slaves. He has travelled most extensively all over Europe ; 
his summers, for almost his lifetime, have been passed in 
Europe or at our Northern watering places. His family 
consists only of himself and wife, a lady of some thirty-five 
years, not beautiful, but thoroughbred, tall figure, fine e^^es, 
good refined features, a gentle, musical voice, and a sweet 
smile. He, fifty. The mansion is very large, great rooms 
with high ceilings, long wide halls, ample piazzas, windows 
to the floor and opening upon grassy terrace. Walls hung 
with chefs d'oeuvre of Europe's and America's best artists. 
Busts from Powers and Crawford, paintings from I^andseer 
and Sully and Peal. Everything that ministers to refined 
taste almost is here. For the grounds, you must imagine a 
chain of very high and steep bluffs, bordering a wide river 
which winds in silvery sheen far below, and is so serpentine 
in its course, that miles and miles away, . . . you can 
see its waters glittering in the last sun rays, while intervening 
there are plain and forest, plantations highly cultivated, and 



Letters 



325 



dotted with the whitewashed negro quarters, and the damp 
green swamp land. The river disappears amid waving, 
moss-grown trees, to reappear tortuously ribboned amid 
canebrake and plain, always on calm days a mirror of the 
bright blue skies, and fleecy clouds of ever-changing forms 
of beauty. As you approach upon the broad carriage way 
that gracefully sweeps past the high-columned portico, which 
is shaded by the cypress and magnolia and crape myrtle, gor- 
geous in its bloom and blooming always, your feet crackling 
the gravel and sea shells, you are almost lost in labyrinthine 
ways which pass over terrace and undulating sward, over 
rustic bridges, through cool and verdurous alleys of gloria 
niu7idi, Japan plum, the live and water oak, making literally a 
flowery pathway of exotics of gorgeous coloring and start- 
ling magnificence, and almost indigenous to the soil in which 
they grow, the river view bursts suddenly upon you, and in 
the beautiful summer house you sit down entranced, wonder- 
ing if it is all real, or if the scene has not been suddenly con- 
jured by an enchanted wand. Flowers and bloom and fruit 
are all around, and almost sick with perfume one can dream 
away the hours in ecstacy of enjoyment, the air so soft and 
balmy, all so still, so peaceful, apparently ; one must here 
awhile forget the lurking serpent. 

You return to the house by the orchards and cultivated 
lands by the greenhouse, hothouse, and pineries. A house 
that cost a small fortune has been built to shelter a single 
banana tree that grows within its hot atmosphere, bears fruit 
and puts forth its great green leaves three feet or more in 
length. Unheard-of plants are clambering about the con- 
servatories ; the more ordinary beauties of the greenhouse 
and of the parterre smile in boundless profusion and perfec- 
tion of bloom. Pines and figs of three or four varieties, 
melons I should be afraid to tell you how large, for you 
would not credit me. Cantaloupes, peaches, pears, and the 
most delicious nectarines are brought fresh to the table every 
day. Shooting galleries and billiard rooms, elegantly fitted 
up for ladies as well as gentlemen, are placed in picturesque 
positions in the grounds and gardens. Stables and offices all 
concealed, nothing to ofiend the most fastidious taste. One 



326 Thomas Kilby Smith 

continually wonders that such a Paradise can be made on 
earth. 

. . . My duties are very nominal. Indeed, I have 
nothing to do but represent General Grant ... I 
ride a little way morning and evening for exercise. I take 
good care of myself, and do not suffer much from the heat. 
I should be very happy if you were with me, for amid all 
this almost voluptuous luxury, I have no one to love me ; 
they minister from fear, not affection. Amid the busiest 
throng I am very lonely. The ' ' months that are passing 
slowly away into years " are hurrying us forward to the 
sea of eternity. The prime and vigor of my life is going 
oh, so fast ! And all these months I have laid in the saps, 
and trenches, and swamps, and hy the roadside and in the 
forest. Sometimes like a stag at bay, ever ready to spring 
upon an assailant, a heart so longing for home and sweet 
home affections, yet so hardened to suffering, so strange to 
all that is homelike. 



I sit me down in quiet and think. I have not the excite- 
ment of the battle and skirmish, bivouac and march, to drain 
all my physical energies and keep my heart from throbbing, 
at times anxiously throbbing with anguish unspeakable. I 
think of you all at home, of you and my dear little children, 
of my darling mother and sweetest sister. How I am blessed 
in all of you, how proud I am of all of you, and yet sweetest 
intercourse by hard sad fate is denied. I must work on in 
the storm of battle, borne forward on the wings of the whirl- 
wind of the strife of the people, the tornado of political ele- 
ments, far behind I leave you all in flowery meads and 
pastures green. The storm has passed you and all is se- 
rene, only on either side you see the wreck of those who 
have fallen. My mission is not yet done. I go to prepare 
you all a way, if not for you, for my children, if not for them, 
still for those who come after. God's hand is in all this, be 
of good cheer, and fear not. I complain a little to myself ; 
sometimes I could cry aloud in very agony of spirit ; I have 
been so desolate, but it is all wrong. I have been selected 



Letters 327 

for some purpose or I should not be here and hindered as I 
am from the heart's best affections ; it is meet that I should 
suffer. I propose to bear my cross gracefully and without 
murmur. As for you all, all who are dear, oh, how dear to 
me, sister, mother, children, wife, weld your aflfections, be 
all in all to one another, bear with each other, it will be but 
a little while ; in all your sufferings, there will be much joy, 
and soon, if not in this world, in another we shall be to- 
gether and at peace. 

How long I shall stay here, I am uncertain. I want to go 
to Mobile and shall try to get in with a flag of truce, if I can- 
not arrange it otherwise. We sent there yesterday, by 
steamboat City of Madison, a large number of wounded and 
sick rebel oflScers. I shall return to Vicksburg first, how- 
ever, and perhaps before the close of this week. Simultane- 
ously with the reception of this letter, if I am fortunate 
enough in getting it off, you will have heard of General 
Sherman's success at Jackson, where Johnson had fortified 
himself The victory is complete. Now we have the Mis- 
sissippi River open, we have the capital and two principal 
towns of his State, the control of the whole State, I wonder 
how Mr. Jefferson Davis feels. My plans may be altered 
upon my return to Vicksburg. I cannot tell yet. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tenn., 

Vicksburg, Aug. 8, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

You must not be disappointed at not seeing me. I could 
go up for a brief season ; but I dare not make what might be 
a sacrifice. My business is here, and here I must stay. I 
shall not return until my position is assured and until I have 
done my behest in an humble way to perpetuate the salva- 
tion of my country. My heart and soul is in this war, ter- 
rible as it is. It is a righteous war, forced upon us as it has 
been by a most unholy rebellion. 



328 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Headquarters Dept. op the Tenn., 

ViCKSBURG, Aug. 13, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

I have brief time to write you, for I am just starting for 
New Orleans. The boat is now waiting for me. You must 
not be anxious if you do not hear from me for some days. 
My stay at New Orleans will be very brief, probably not 
more than a day. 



Headquarters Department oe the Gui,p, 
Nineteenth Army Corps, 

New ORI.EANS, Aug. 16, 1863. 

I believe I may be said literally to have fought my way to 
the Gulf At all events, I find myself at New Orleans after 
many trials. The lower Mississippi is to me very beautiful 
scenery. You can have no conception of the nature of the 
grounds, the houses, improvements, general appearances of 
the country from anything you read. I was certainly inter- 
ested and charmed. The city of New Orleans is familiar 
from description. I feel almost as if I had been here before. 
General Banks occupies one of the most beautiful residences 
in the most beautiful locality. I am sojourning with him. 
I left my horses and servants at Vicksburg, but the General 
has placed a carriage at my command. His establishment 
is elegant and thoroughly appointed. The St. Charles 
Hotel, the shell road to the lake, the levee, and the French 
portion are the most noticeable features. All these I have 
pretty thoroughly investigated. The streets are perfectly 
clean, the police system above compare, everybody here is 
on their best behavior. Two 3^ears in the woods among the 
toads and snakes has made me unfamiliar with city life and 
all sights and sounds are strange to me. Memphis is a mere 
village as compared to New Orleans, and Vicksburg and 
Natchez mere suburban towns. But I only weary you with 
vague recital of my own impressions. As new and strange 
scenes greet my eye, I long for the power to communicate 
with those I love and make them in some degree sharers in 
my own emotions. Upon the steamer's deck, in the whirl 



Letters 329 

of life, the rapid transition from the camp to what in demo- 
cratic America may be called the court, in all the varied 
scenes of my stirring life, kaleidoscopic in its changes, I 
think of home, or the dear group that makes my home. 
Shall I ever see any of you again ? I seem impelled by 
some strange destiny forward, always a little in advance of 
the army. There are important movements in contempla- 
tion. Soon you will hear of them. 

Everybody here, out of the army, is " Secesh." This of 
course. We must conquer this people, wrest the power of 
the government from their grasp, prevent their ever regain- 
ing power, and meanwhile treat them kindly. Extermina- 
tion, annihilation is out of the question. Oppression will 
react! 

The women are strangely hostile. There is no difference 
among them. From the borders of Tennessee to the Gulf 
they are all alike — in countrj^ town, or city, but one feeling, 
rebellious, coupled with an antipathy to Northern men in- 
conceivable, indescribable. They are herded now within a 
narrow compass, driven, hedged in, almost girdled by a 
circle of fire. Georgia and Alabama are full of them. When 
Charleston and Mobile fall, I do not know where they will 
find refuge. As their men disappear, however, there will be 
a commingling of races and perhaps the nation regenerated. 
A long and bloody war is still before us. A united North 
would finish it in a month. Their strange, perverse in- 
sanity, their want of unity, prolongs the struggle. But God 
in his own good time. The nation is being bathed in fire 
and blood. Five years more of war will purge, the viler 
material will have passed away, then twenty-five years more 
and the people may again hope. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tennessee, 
ViCKSBURG, Aug. 20, 1863. 

I wrote you from New Orleans and am now probably in 
advance of my letter. Circumstances rendered it necessary 



330 Thomas Kilby Smith 

for me to return with despatch, and I am now on my way to 
Cairo, and probably Memphis. I have traversed the Missis- 
sippi, the lower Mississippi, so often that I am as familiar 
with its banks almost as a river pilot, I shall leave this 
afternoon. Write you again both from Memphis and Cairo. 

General Grant has not gone to Mobile, he is now in Mem- 
phis or on his return to this point. 

The health at New Orleans is remarkably good, and this 
may be ascribed in a great measure to extraordinary cleanli- 
ness of the city and the perfection of the quarantine. Natchez, 
too, is healthy, and I hear no complaint at Vicksburg. I do 
not believe there will be what is called a sickly season here, 
or in the Southern country generally, and regret to learn 
you anticipate one where you are. You speak of rest for our 
armies. There is, there will be, no rest for armed men while 
this rebellion lasts. We have sent one army corps to rein- 
force Banks. Our soldiers are not suffering ; they are well 
fed and well clothed. They want support and reinforcement 
from home, they want to see the conscript law rigidly 
enforced. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tennessee, 
Vicksburg, Aug. 26, 1863. 
My dear Mother : 

I attempted some description of these people in their 
homes and their luxurious mode of life. I mean the opulent 
of the South, generally, without reference to individuals ; 
and in return it strikes me, you give a little bit of a rub, evi- 
dently fearing that I should be seduced from my Spartan 
training, while treading their flowery paths of dalliance. 
You need not be alarmed. I have come back to my narrow 
cot and canvas roof without one pang of regret. I enjoy 
luxury for the brief season it is accorded me, but I know 
it only tends to enervate. On many accounts, I like the 
South, but its influences are baneful, its atmosphere, physi- 



Letters 331 

cal and moral, poisonous, except to those who have been 
purged and purified by misfortune and the stern necessity 
for exertion ; whose constitutions of iron have been ham- 
mered into steel. I remember the rockbound shores of New 
England perfectly. The icy crags over which, with iron 
spikes to my shoes, I have toiled and clambered on my way 
to and from school in midwinter. Do you quite remember, 
I was but six years old when I made those journeys of two 
miles to Master Manley's from the " Sanderson Beach," as I 
used to call them ; that was before Walter was born. 

I have been brought to a most abrupt stop in my proceed- 
ings and hardly know how to resume my thread. You must 
pardon my discursive epistles. I have this moment been 
handed your favor of 14th inst. Mrs. Sherman is on a visit 
to her husband. I went out there a day or two ago to make 
a call upon her. She spoke of you all with much interest, 
and regretted her previous inability to visit you ; hoped to 
be able to do so upon her return. She is a very charming 
person. 

There are two brilliant examples now before the nation 
standing out in bold relief, in fact before the whole civilized 
world ; their history is good for little boys to know. Let 
my sons ponder upon it. One is General Grant and the 
other General Banks. Both were bom of very poor parents, 
both had to labor hard for a livelihood in the country in 
their boyhood. General Grant's father lived in Brown 
County, Ohio, near Georgetown. The first money he ever 
earned or that was paid to him, was for a load of rags, 
that with great enterprise he gathered together in and 
about the town, drove to Cincinnati, a distance of forty 
miles, in a two-horse wagon, by himself, sold for fifteen dol- 
lars, and returned triumphant. He had his money in silver 
and he was the richest boy in all that section of country. 
This was before he was twelve years old, and as the en- 
terprise originated with himself, and was carried out suc- 
cessfully, notwithstanding the difi&culties of bad roads, the 
winter season, his diminutive stature, it perhaps gave as 
good evidence of great generalship as anything he has done 



332 Thomas Kilby Smith 

since. He went to West Point from the village school and 
graduated as the best rider of the academy — the best, be- 
cause the boldest. After he had been brevetted three times 
for his gallantry in Mexico, he had to resign a captaincy be- 
cause he was too poor to support his family ; went to farming 
near St. Louis, and there was not ashamed to drive his own 
team loaded with wood to the city. He came into the ser- 
vice again as captain of Volunteers. He has told me him- 
self of these things, and that his best training was before he 
went to the military academy. I do not want my boys to be 
afraid to work. I want them to ride and shoot and fish and 
to know how to do it all well, and above all not to be afraid 
of anything or anybody but God, or afraid to do anything 
but tell a lie, and no matter what they do, they must not be 
afraid to tell of it. They must never take an insult from any 
boy or man. If a girl or woman insult them laugh at or 
kiss her. Never quarrel ; if there has to be a word or a 
blow, let the blow come first. But I was going to write a 
word about General Banks. His father was a woodsawyer ; 
. . . his boyhood was of toil, privation, and mortifica- 
tion, yet to-day he is one of the most courteous, gentle, 
kindly men in all the world. He has done for himself what 
no teachers could have done for him, however high their 
salary or brilliant their reputation. These are dazzling in- 
stances, but they are exponents of a fact. This war has 
brought out a latent talent, a hidden strength of character 
in the individual, that astounds the world, but we almost 
invariably find it exhibited among those who in their early 
years have been compelled to depend upon themselves for 
thought and action. 



In my last to my wife, I said I should write next from 
Cairo or Memphis, but no sooner had I despatched that 
letter than I received intelligence which caused a change in 
my movements. I shall remain here till General Grant re- 
turns. The weather has been very pleasant for some time 
past, nights cool enough for two blankets. I am sitting 
now in a very wet tent, with my feet propped up to keep 



Letters 333 

them out of the water ; it is raining very hard and is quite 
cold. I am most agreeably disappointed in the summers of 
the South ; take them, if the two seasons I have experienced 
are a test, from end to end, they are more pleasant than 
our own. 

I received three or four days ago, a notice from the Secre- 
tary of War that the President has appointed me brigadier- 
general, my rank to date from the nth Aug. " for gallant 
conduct and service in the field." This I suppose applied 
to my assaults of the 19th and 22d May, upon the enemy's 
fortifications at Vicksburg. ' ' Shiloh ' ' and Russell' s House, 
Corinth, Chickasas Bayou, Arkansas Post, all I suppose 
went for naught, or what is more probable, the President 
never saw my papers. I don't know how he could get over 
the petition of my command endorsed by my commanding 
generals. The assault of the 19th was the most murderous 
affair I was ever in, but I have led troops in battles that 
lasted much longer and where I have lost more men, and in 
which I have been as much exposed. 

I have had congratulations and serenades and all that sort 
of thing galore, for, as is not unusual, I have found in my 
case that a prophet has honor save in his own country. I 
have some friends and pretty warm ones in the army. My 
old command is encamped about eighteen miles from here 
near Black River, and General Sherman is not far away 
from them. He got news of my appointment by telegraph 
and rode over to tell them the news, whereat there was a 
perfect yell. The old fellow was about as glad as the boys 
from all I hear, and together they had a love feast. I sup- 
pose you have heard of the appointment through the papers, 
though of course it is under a misnomer, and it will be old 
news to you. 

General Grant has been away the last ten days and there 
is hardly anybody at headquarters but myself. I am look- 
ing for him every day, and upon his return shall be some- 
what relieved. 



334 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Headquarters Dept. of the Tennessee, 

ViCKSBURG, Aug. 29, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

I wrote you yesterday and shortly after my letter was 
mailed, was gratified by the return of General Grant. He 
congratulated me warmly upon my appointment, at which 
he is evidently sincerely rejoiced and desired me to direct the 
enclosed letter to you. It is sealed, and I do not know its 
contents ; if complimentary, I hope it may be preserved for 
my children in future years. General Grant is destined to 
wield a powerful influence upon the nation. His name will 
be closely linked with the history of the age. I am proud 
of his friendship and of the great confidence he reposes in me. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tennessee, 

ViCKSBURG, Sept. I, 1863. 

My dear Wife : 



I am about to accompany General Grant to New Orleans ; 
shall start this evening and be gone some eight or ten days, 
so that if you do not hear from me as regularly as usual you 
must not be anxious. 



New Ori,Eans, Sept. 6, 1863. 

My last was dated from Natchez, advising you of my intent 
to come here. Yours of 21st was received at this point day 
before yesterday. Our trip down the river was safe and 
pleasant, and we were fortunate in not being fired upon by 
the guerillas. The steamboat /z^/m, which preceded us, was 
fired upon and three men wounded. Our reception in New 
Orleans was very brilliant — serenades, calls, a magnificent 
evening reception or levee by General Banks, and yesterday 
a grand review. The parade grounds are some eight miles 
from the city. We rode out on horseback, and I am sorry 
to say our festivities were or are interrupted by a rather seri- 
ous accident. The two generals and their staff made a large 



Letters 335 

cavalcade. General Grant was riding a fine but unbroken 
horse and on our return the animal shied upon a carriage 
and fell ; he was in advance and at rapid speed ; the oflficer 
following was out of place, and rode over him and the tramp- 
ling of the horse bruised him severely. We took him in a 
state of insensibility into a roadside inn before which the 
accident occurred, and where he now lies in the room in 
which I write. His thigh is badly injured and he cannot 
move his leg, but he is better this morning and I think can 
be moved in a day or two ; with the residue of his staff, I 
remain to take care of him. 

The weather here has been sultry until to-day ; a fine 
breeze is stirring and I think we shall soon have rain. It was 
intensely hot during the review, which was tedious, there 
being some fifteen thousand troops to be reviewed at once. 
My clothes were dripping wet with perspiration, as if I had 
been in a rainstorm, — but then I had motion, gladsome mo- 
tion, and " motion to an endless end is needful for man's 
heart." 



New ORI.EANS, Sept. 7, 1863. 

I open my letter to enclose a couple of cartes, one of Gen- 
eral Grant, the other you will probably recognize. I will 
send the cartes of the residue of the staflf to-morrow. They 
were all taken hurriedly, the weather intensely hot and the 
time noon, when we were all pretty tired, having had no 
sleep for two or three nights. . . . Some day, when I 'm 
in a better humor, and get all my toggery together, I '11 have 
one taken in full uniform for you. The Adjutant- General 
of the United States lent me his coat to be taken in, and his 
figure being smaller than mine, makes me look pinched in 
the breast ; it was as much as I could do to button it over. 

General Grant is much improved this morning, and I 
think will be out soon again. Meanwhile, we are all very 
quiet and comfortably provided for. My diet being soft 
shell crabs and pompinot and nice fish that is brought me 



336 Thomas Kilby Smith 

from the Gulf. General Banks calls, and all the other gen- 
erals, and we are at no loss for society. 

P. S. — There is a group of the General and his staff finish- 
ing while I write. Send in a few days. 



Headquarters Dept. of the Tenn., 
ViCKSBURG, Sept. 15, 1863. 

My visit to New Orleans and the forts some one hundred 
miles further south has been fraught with much interest. I 
do not remember in all my life to have had so much hilarity 
and joy crowded into so brief a space of time. 

It has literally been a triumphal march. The only alloy 
being the unfortunate accident to General Grant, who, I am 
happy to say, is safely at these headquarters, though I fear 
his accident will confine him to his bed for a good while. 

The New Orleans papers have been filled with allusions 
to us in various terms of compliment. General Banks has 
been most assiduous in attention. 

Of all this I will write you more at length the moment I 
find leisure. I have been assigned to active duty in the field 
and to command the Second Brigade, Sixth Division, Army 
of the Tennessee, reporting for duty to Major-Gen. J. B. 
McPherson, who, I am happy to say, is my personal friend. 
Of this matter I will write more anon. Sufiice it now to say 
that the command is a very fine one, an eminently fighting 
brigade, and one that distinguished itself on my left in the 
assault on Vicksburg. 

Headquarters Dept. of the Tenn., 

Vicksburg, Sept. 20, 1863. 
My dear Mother : 

I want now to impress upon you, and I 'CoS.r^you at least, 
or at the last, will understand me and know I am in earnest, 
that General Grant is the man of the nation, that the eyes 
of the nation are turned upon him, that he has a world-wide 



Letters 337 

celebrity, I was going to write, but I should write, world- 
wide honest fame, and I should inform you further that he 
does not write much or say much, but whatever he writes or 
says is strictly to the point. 

Headquarters Dept. oe the Tenn., 

ViCKSBURG, Sept. 20, 1863. 

Mail of this morning brings your congratulations. I have 
been so long a brigadier that the mere rank added makes but 
little diflference in my feelings. 

I wrote you yesterday, urging you to write to General 
Grant ; a few minutes since he showed me your letter to him 
of even date with mine, eloquent and well expressed, but 
brief. You must write to him more at length. In my judg- 
ment he will be confined to his bed for a long time with his 
inj ury . Such letters as you cotdd write would interest him 
more than you can well imagine. . . . 

I must tell you an incident which occurred to me the other 
day, before I went to New Orleans. The city of Natchez 
had sent up a delegation to wait upon General Grant, who 
turned them over to me. I was to escort them around the 
fortifications, and the General gave the principal man, the 
mayor, his war-horse to ride — a splendid cream-colored 
stallion, a little vicious. I was riding Bell, a horse you have 
never seen, but confessed the finest horse in the army. East 
or West ; all have said so who have seen him — a large 
powerful brown or mahogany bay, great in battle, one who 
will yield the right of way to none. Well, we were riding 
in a very narrow gorge, the mayor had dismounted to lead 
his horse over a bad place, being in advance of me, when all 
at once he turned and a terrific conflict took place between 
the two horses. I seized the bridle of the General's, en- 
deavoring to manage both ; at the same moment mine reared 
straight upon his hind legs. I dismounted in the expecta- 
tion that he would fall upon me, and as I touched the ground 
fell. Then these two great stallions, full of fire and fury, 
fought over my prostrate body, their hoofs struck together 



338 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and each trampled within an inch of my head all around and 
over me. I lay still as if I had been in bed ; I knew my 
hour had not yet come. My own horse was the first to per- 
ceive my danger ; he retired a little from regard to me. 
Those who were by were speechless and horror-stricken. I 
rose unharmed, mounted and rode forward. I have never 
been in greater peril of my life. God watches me in calm 
and in storm. 

My old regiment wanted to make me a present of a saddle 
and bridle, and I am told raised in a few moments $975 for 
that purpose, and the thing was to be extended to sword, 
sash, pistols, everything complete. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, 
Second Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Natchez, Miss., Sept. 27, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

My reception at Natchez has been very brilliant, splendid 
dinners, suppers — all that sort of thing, with speeches, and 
songs, mirth and hilarity. My command is magnificent. I 
have six regiments, and a battery, one regiment cavalry, one 
of mounted infantry. My quarters are literally a palace, 
one of the most elegant houses in or about Natchez, situated 
in the most lovely grounds you can imagine, within about 
a mile from the city. 

My troops are all camped close around me on the grounds 
of neighboring villas, which, combined, have heretofore given 
the name of ' ' Dignity Hill ' ' to my own general encamp- 
ment. One of my regiments is in town on duty as provost 
guard. The residue keep close guard and watch upon their 
chief, and no baron in feudal hall ever had more loyal sub- 
jects. The rides and walks about are all most charming, 
especially at this season of the year, and I am in a constant 
state of regret that you cannot be here to enjoy it with me. 
If there was any indication as to how long I am to remain, 
I would send for you ; but I may be ordered away at a mo- 



Letters 



339 



merit's notice. Indeed, I have no expectation of staying 
here more than eight or ten days at the furthest. I shall 
either be ordered back to Vicksburg or directed into the field. 
Meanwhile I shall take the good the gods provide me. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, 
First Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Natchez, Oct. 7, 1863. 
My dear Mother : 

I knew you would write me on the 23d ; felt that even as 
I was writing you on the selfsame day, perhaps at the same 
hour, our spirits were in commune. What is there in all this 
world so sweet, so pure, so holy as a mother's love ? Darling 
mother, I love you with all my heart and all my mind, and 
all my strength, but my love for you is nothing in compari- 
son with yours for me that has continued so constant, so un- 
wavering, for all these years, these long, long years which 
yet are nothing to look back upon. 

It is true as you remark, I have travelled much, very 
much in the past season — have traversed many, many miles 
by land and water ; ten times up and down the river when 
the banks were infested by guerrillas, never shot into once, 
other boats preceding and succeeding me constantly attacked. 
I seem to have borne nearly a charmed life. God has been 
very good to me. I see by the papers, as well as by your 
letter, that Bill lyytle has gone under at last ; poor fellow, 
his was a gallant spirit, and he has gone where the good 
soldiers go. The best death to die — ' ' We tell his doom 
without a sigh, for he is freedom's now and fame's." 



Headquarters Second Brigade, 
First Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Vicksburg, Miss., Oct. 14, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

My last advices to you have been from Natchez. Since 
then, I have hurriedly changed my base. How long I shall 



340 Thomas Kilby Smith 

remain here will depend upon other moves and circum- 
stances. You must not suffer yourself to be worried for me 
if many days at a time elapse without intelligence from me ; 
of course, communication won't be continually interrupted. 
I left very pleasant and luxurious quarters at Natchez, and 
some good and kind friends, to come into the field and the 
bivouac, soldiers' fates, and we make the best of it. 



Headquarters Second Brigade, 
First Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
ViCKSBURG, Miss., Oct. 20, 1863. 
Mv DEAR Mother : 

General Grant received your letter and of this I have 
written before. He is now gone, I don't know whither — 
flitted with his staff and surroundings before I had come 
back, as the swallows flit in the fall. I do not think you 
have got a right estimate of Sherman. You call him ' ' slow, 
cautious, almost to a fault. ' ' On the contrary, he is as quick 
as lightning, the most rapid thinker, actor, writer, I ever 
came in contact with — proud and high-spirited as an Arab 
horse. Grant is slow and cautious, and sure and lucky. 
They are both good men. Men you would admire if you 
knew them, and men who upon first blush you would be 
marvellously deceived in. 

You ask about the tribute from the old " 54th." I under- 
stand the boys have made arrangements to fit me out ; but 
have n't received the articles. Somebody said that they were 
sumptuous. I suppose they would get the best that money 
could buy, for they think a heap of " old Kilby " — the only 
name by which I am known in the Fifteenth Army Corps. 
Strangers used to come and ask for Kilby, and for a long 
time I rarely heard the name of Smith as applied to myself. 
I don't know but what their presents have been burnt up or 
sunk in the river. There has been a great deal of loss lately. 
When they come, I will let you know and tell you all about 
them. 



Letters 



341 



Enclosed herewith find copy of a letter written by General 
Sherman to the 13th Regulars on the occasion of the death 
of his son at Memphis. I saw a copy by accident to-day, and 
together with the brief notice that his son had died, is the 
only intelHgence I have. He had his boy with him, a bright, 
active little fellow, who rode with him wherever he went, 
and who was a great pet with his own old regiment, the 13th 
Regulars. You know General Sherman came into the ser- 
vice as colonel of this regiment at the outset of the war. The 
death must have been sudden, and you perceive by the tenor 
of the letter how deeply he feels it. I do assure you that we 
find every day in the service, that "the bravest are the 
tenderest, the loving are the daring." I will forward your 
letter to him, and perhaps you had better address him again 
on the occasion of his bereavement. I am sure he is a dear 
friend of mine, and in the chances of this war, calculating 
upon his position and mine, it is hardly probable we shall 
meet again. Like him, " on, on, I must go, till I meet a 
soldier's fate, or see my country rise superior to all factions, 
till its flag is adored and respected by ourselves and all the 
powers on earth, " ' and now our paths are slightly divergent. 
Can you imagine it, even as I write, the enclosed order is 
handed me, and received without one pang of regret. I copy 
verbatim. You may understand the chances and changes 
of a soldier's life. The darky says, " here to-morrow and 
gone to-day. ' ' 

"Special Orders) 
"No. 236. ) 

"Headquarters Seventeenth Army Corps, 

" Dept. of the Tennessee, 

"ViCKSBURG, Miss., Oct. 20, 1863. 

" Brig.-Genl. E. S. Dennis, U. S. Vols., will report forth- 
with to Genl. McArthur, to be assigned to command of 
Second Brigade, First Division, and will relieve Brig.-Genl. 
T. K. Smith. 

" Brig.-Genl. T. K. Smith, on being relieved from com- 
mand of Second Brigade, First Division, will proceed forth- 
with to Natchez, Miss., and report to Brig.-Genl. M. M. 

' General Sherman's letter to Capt. C. C. Smith 13th Regulars. 



342 Thomas Kilby Smith 

Crocker, commanding Fourth Division, for assignment to 
command of Brigade in Fourth Division. 

" By order of Maj.-Genl. McPherson, 

" W. T. Clark, 
"A. A. General. 
" Brig.-Genl. T. K. Smith, 

" Com'g Second Brigade, First Division." 

Thus you perceive, having Hcked the Second Brigade into 
shape, I am assigned elsewhere. Meanwhile, pray for me, 
and thank God that everything has transpired to take me 
out of the filthy God-forsaken hole on a hill. My next will 
be from Natchez and will contain full directions how to ad- 
dress me. Keep writing, and enclose my letters with request 
to forward to Major-Genl. James B. McPherson, commanding 
Seventeenth Army Corps, Department of the Tennessee, 
Vicksburg, Miss. He is my warm, intimate, personal friend, 
and will see that all come safe to hand. I enclose you his 
carte. He is very handsome, a thorough soldier, brave as 
Caesar, young, a bachelor, and — engaged to be married. 

Genl. M. M. Crocker, to whom I am about to report, is a 
most excellent gentleman and eke a soldier, thank God! 
graduate of the Military Academy of West Point, also an in- 
timate of mine and friend. Somehow or other, the West 
Pointers all take to me, and by the grace of God I find my 
way among soldiers. You can't understand all this, but it 
is most delightful to have a soldier, a real soldier, for a com- 
mander and associate. Natchez, by this time is a second 
home to me. I know a heap of people and have some good 
friends even among the ' ' Secesh. ' ' I may be there a day, 
a month, a year, nobody knows and nobody cares. I can 
pack, and ' ' get up and dust ' ' as quickly as any of them. 

Headquarters Second Brigade, 
First Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Vicksburg, Miss., Oct. 22, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 

I propose sending to you to-day, per Adams' Express 
Company, a box of pictures. 

The group will be interesting to strangers, containing as 




MAJOR-GENERAL U. S. GRANT AND OFFICERS, 

NEW ORLEANS, 1863. 



C.S"^("/a^.'343.) 



Letters 343 

it does, Generals Grant and Thomas ; the other gentlemen 
are members of General Grant's staff — Captain Jane, Colonel 
Duff, Colonel Riggin, and Captain Camcross, the latter aid 
to General Thomas. 

I congratulate you upon the results of the late election, 
partial news of which has this night reached me. The sol- 
diers of Ohio will begin to feel that they may yet find a home 
outside their camp. I think Mr. Pugh and his tool, Mr. 
Vallandigham, have gone to their poHtical grave, from 
which there will be no resurrection. 



Headquarters First Brigade, 

Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 

Natchez, Oct 26, 1863. 

By former letters you will understand my heading and 
dates ; lest, however, they should not have been received, I 
will recapitulate, by the remark that I have been relieved 
from the command of the Second Brigade, First Division, 
now employed at garrison duty in Vicksburg, and have been 
assigned to the command of the First Brigade, Fourth Divi- 
sion. My headquarters at present at Natchez and the same 
quarters I formerly occupied. This change is entirely agree- 
able to me, the command equally good. 

Headquarters First Brigade, 

Fifth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 

Department of Tennessee, Nov. 19, 1863. 

Your wildest dreams never shadowed forth the life I lead. 
I retain my business headquarters at ' ' Kenil worth, ' ' a most 
sumptuous and elegant house ; but for my private quarters I 
occupy " Auburn," a seat nearly adjacent, and the prop- 
erty of Dr. . . . the largest cotton planter and, prob- 
ably, the richest man in the South. You may imagine my 
menage. He is in New York ; but I am rarely permitted 
to dine at home. There are several families, at whose table 
a cover is always laid for me, and the stated entertainments 
are of almost daily occurrence. I have never seen in New 



344 Thomas Kilby Smith 

York or elsewhere anything approaching the style of living 
of the wealthy here. ... I wish you could see my 
apartments this morning — perfect conservatories. My tables 
are covered with bouquets, camellias, and violets, and gera- 
niums in lavish profusion. The air here now is soft and 
balmy, the weather like our Indian summer ; not quite so 
cool. The mercury, as I write, stands in the shade at 
seventy-eight degrees. 

I wrote you that the beautiful sword, sash, belt, etc., that 
had been presented to me, was sunk. It was recovered, but 
very much spoiled. The agent would not receive it from the 
express company at Vicksburg, and I have never seen it. 
The saddle and bridle came safe enough and are very fine. 

Headquarters First Brigade, 

Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 

Department oe the Tennessee, 

" Camp Kii,by," Miss., Dec. 15, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

I am glad 3'^ou were pleased with the pictures, though I 
think they were all wretched. I do assure you I was any- 
thing but sad when mine was taken ; indeed, we were all in 
a high frolic. I believe it is the general expression of my 
countenance when in repose. General Grant's was a very 
fine one till the painter ruined it with his daub. The group 
is worth keeping and will be historical. 

Our weather here is most delightful ; until within a day or 
two perfectly pleasant without a fire. Yesterday a thunder- 
storm and to-day bright, clear, and bracing, something like 
your October weather. My camp is outpost in a very \^dld, 
broken, barren country. I am in front, and nearest to the 
enemy. We exchange compliments occasionally. Yester- 
day the caitiffs captured a couple of my men who had ven- 
tured beyond the guard line. So we are on the qui vive, and 
that keeps the blood stirred. 

I have left a life of great luxury at Natchez — ' ' fortune la 
guerre. ' ' 



Letters 345 

headquarters first brigade, 

Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 

Department of the Tennessee, 

"Camp Kii,by," Miss., Dec. 13, 1863. 

My dear Wife : 

My command has been ordered from Natchez and thrown 
to the front. I am encamped farthest to the front and close 
to the enemy's lines near Black River. In a future letter I 
will send you map upon which you can locate my position. 
The country is very wild and broken, and has always been 
sparsely inhabited. It is now wild and desolate in the ex- 
treme. I am upon a chain of bluffs cut up by the most ex- 
traordinary fissures. The subsoil has no tenacity, not sooner 
does the upper crust give way than the substratum dissolves 
like sugar, making the most hideous chasms and rents. The 
soil is bare and apparently barren save where the forest is 
undisturbed ; but this is only in appearance, for here the 
best cotton has been grown. 



Headquarters First Brigade, 
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Department of the Tennessee, 
" Camp Kii^by " in the Fiei<d, Dec. 22, 1863. 

I am glad to learn that you are all living comfortably and 
contented. You none of you have the most remote idea of 
the horrors of war, or the desolation and despair that is left 
in the track of large armies. I have known women whose 
husbands and brothers, and sons, have been forcibly con- 
scripted, torn away from them at midnight by the rebels, left 
without food, fire, or clothes, sometimes sick in bed. I have 
known others who, two years ago, were of the most opulent 
in the land, who counted their yearly incomes by the hun- 
dreds of thousands, begging for food from our commissary. 
I don't know how it may be at the North. I am told by 
those who have returned from visits home, that the people 
they have met are callous and careless, and ignorant of the 
state of affairs here. This war has had its origin in lawless 



346 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and malignant passion, and is the severest calamity with 
which this land could be visited. Seas, rivers, and harbors 
are blocked up, cities are depopulated, fertile regions are 
condemned to eternal desolation. Mourning, tears, anguish, 
misery, in its worst form, is the lot of a vast number of our 
people. Those who have immunity are blessed, and should 
be grateful to God. I imagine, that, aside from the evan- 
escent sensation that a vivid description of a battle-scene 
gives, few think of the soldier in the field, or of those who 
sorrow for him dead. Part of the country is dripping with 
the blood of heroes slain, part is given up to feasting and 
revelry, at Washington the glory of Babylon has come again. 

Headquarters First Brigade, 
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps. 
Department of the Tennessee, 
"Camp Kilby" in the fiei<d, Christmas, 1863. 

My dear Mother : 

You will understand that I am not at Vicksburg ; but at a 
point between the Yazoo and Black Rivers — a wilderness 
utterly desolate. My district and camps extend over a wide 
expanse of country. I am complimented by a large com- 
mand, and have had accession of five regiments of cavalry 
and a battery of artillery, an increase of some four thousand 
men to report to me — quite an army by itself. You may be 
sure I have enough to do. I average my forty miles a day 
on horseback, and keep my three good horses thoroughly 
exercised. We, of course, do not know from day to day 
what our movements may be ; always waiting orders. But 
in all probability, I shall stay here or hereabouts all winter, 
varying with an occasional expedition and such brushes as 
I may be able to coax out of the enemy, the main body of 
whom is about sixty miles to my front, and who keep me 
amused by scouting parties. Meanwhile, the Senate may 
take it into their wise heads to reject my confirmation when 
the President sends my name in, and I may find myself re- 
lieved. 



Letters 347 

Headquarters First Brigade, 

Fourth Div., Seventeenth army Corps. 

department oe the Tennessee, 

'* Camp Kii.by " in the field, January i, 1864. 

My dear Sister Helen : 

The weather in this neck of woods has been most charm- 
ing, warm and balmy, until night before last, when after a 
most terrific rainstorm, the full benefit of which your brother 
received, riding that day forty miles or more, the wind 
changed to the north, and suddenly there came a flurry of 
snow followed by freezing and most bitter high wind. I 
never felt more intense cold anywhere. I don't know the 
condition of the thermometer, but everything about me has 
been frozen up, ink, ale — everything that will freeze — and 
to-day, although the sun shone bright, there was no sign of 
thaw. It is by far the coldest weather I have experienced 
for more than two years. It is exactly a year ago to-day 
since we withdrew from ' ' Chickasas Bayou, ' ' within six or 
eight miles from here after one of the severest contested 
battles I have been in. I little thought to be here, that day, 
now. It has been a year of remarkable events to our country 
and to me. 

I send you a few old books that have been my solace in 
many a weary hour past ; don't scorn them because they are 
old. " Old wine, old books, old friends," you know— and 
each one of them I send you has a legend to me, associations 
that make it dear, and, therefore, for my sake, you will keep 
them as a little more precious, giving all of the family who 
wish a taste of their contents, for they all have intrinsic 
worth ; you will note a memorandum in some from whence 
they came, etc. 

For a whole month past I have been in the wilderness, so 
I can write you no stirring story. I left a life in Natchez 
that almost realized a fairy tale ; this could not last long, 
and on some accounts I am glad it is over. I am again in 
the front, though it was pleasant, while it lasted, to sit in 
^ * fayre ladye' s bower. ' ' I wonder how you all look at home. 



348 Thomas Kilby Smith 

I have hoped for cartes, but I suppose it would be expecting 
too much from the enterprise of the family, I wonder if I 
shall ever again see any of you. Almost every night I 
dream of the dead, of father, and Walter, and Charlie. One 
or two nights ago my dream was so vivid. I thought I woke 
with Walter's hand in mine. Can it be that the dead watch 
over the living, and come to us in dreams ; I sometimes 
think that this is true, and that for every friend we lose on 
earth we gain a guardian angel. I hope our dear mother is 
well and happy. I can see by her letter that in my children 
she renews her youth. She has had many and sore afflic- 
tions, but bears a brave heart. You must all do everything 
in your power to smooth her pathway. I have met many 
women in my experience of life — many beautiful, witty, 
sweet and lovely, some who thought they loved me — but 
never any woman like our mother, never any one with so 
many graces of mind and body. 



Headquarters First Brigade, 
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Department of the Tennessee, 
" Camp Kii<by " in the FiEi^d, January 9, 1864. 

My dear Mother and Wife : 

I have just finished packing a box of books, old, some of 
them well-worn, and all of them, with one or two exceptions, 
have given me solace. You will find stories to interest the 
children at least, mayhap some that in revision will interest 
you. I quite envy the pleasure you will, I think, have 
about the fireside in the perusal of the old stories. John 
Randolph, in one of his letters, says, ' ' Indeed, I have some- 
times blamed myself for not cultivating your imagination, 
when you were young. It is a dangerous quality, however, 
for the possessor. But if from my life were to be taken the 
pleasure derived from that faculty, very little would remain. 
Shakspeare, and Milton, and Chaucer, and Spencer, and 
Plutarch, and the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and Don 
Quixote, and Gil Bias, and Tom Jones, and Gulliver, and 



Letters 349 

Robinson Crtisoe, and the tale of Troy divine, have made up 
more than half my worldly enjoyments. ' ' I sympathize and 
agree with what he says. Everyone of those books is dear 
to me now. I got the second volume of To77i Jones by acci- 
dent the other day, and devoured the whole of it at a sitting. 
So I would Robinson Crusoe, and I have never ceased to re- 
gret the loss of my first copy of the Arabian Nights, which 
someone of the . . . family borrowed and forgot to 
return. 

You remember Uncle Jones made me a Christmas present 
of it, the first copy I ever saw and I incontinently devoured 
it, lying on my belly in front of the chamber fire at the im- 
mortal " Saunders and Beaches," while they took turns read- 
ing French to you downstairs. The sensations produced 
upon me then by that book are vivid with me now. 
Still imagination " is a dangerous quality for the pos- 
sessor." Certainly, there is no pleasure so lasting, none 
to which we can so frequently revert and with so little 
danger of satiety; but a fine mind may be given up en- 
tirely to the pleasures of fiction, and by too free indul- 
gence be enervated for profitable labor. Upon retrospection, 
I am satisfied that this was the case with myself. I read 
hugely, enormously, for a boy ; more before I had reached 
my teens than many tolerably educated men in their lives. 
My reading ruined me for everything else except belles lettres 
and the classics. ''Belles lettres and the classics" will do 
for the amusement of the fortunate recipient of hereditary 
wealth, but will hardly answer to get a living out of There- 
fore, be a little cautious with the novels and the tales ; they 
are all alike. Is there any chance for the Latin ? I hope 
reasonable effort will be made in this behalf You will be 
surprised at the change it will effect, the facilities it will give 
the learners in whatever else they are striving to acquire. 

In respect to my camp, I am in what may be called a 
howling wilderness, deserted by all save prowling guerillas 
and my own soldiers. My regiments are scattered along a 
chain of bluffs, desolate and cheerless— this winter unusually 
bleak and cold. They are in tents or rude log huts. Timber is 



350 Thomas Kilby Smith 

scarce, and water that is fit to drink, hard to get. The roads 
are so cut up as to be almost impassable. I am companion- 
less, solitary; so far as interchange of sentiment is concerned, 
entirely alone. ... I make raids to the front in search, 
of guerillas, and for forage and cattle, riding far and return- 
ing fast to my stronghold, sometimes imagining myself a 
Scottish chief, and living very much as the Scottish chiefs 
are described to have lived. I wish I had a Scott beside me 
now and then, to sing my lay. Where, or when, this life 
will end, I cannot say ; I have no prescience of orders. I 
think we wait the action of Congress. We can't soon move 
far on account of the roads. Still, my camp life does not, 
with me, contrast disagreeably with the life I led at Natchez, 
Sudden change, rapid transition, is familiar to the soldier, 
who must learn to accommodate himself to camp or court. 
So long as my health is spared, I can contrive to be happy 
after a fashion under almost any circumstances. ' ' My mind 
to me a kingdom is. ' ' 



Headquarters First Brigade, 

Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps,. 

Department oe the Tennessee, 

In THU EIEI,d, January i8, 1864. 

My dear Mother : 

Here I find myself isoli, and until further orders must sa 
remain. The government of the army is strictly monarchi- 
cal, almost a pure despotism. An eminent English jurist 
asserts that there is no such thing as martial law, or in other 
words, that martial law may be defined to be the will of the 
general in command. A true soldier, the instant he enlists 
or accepts a commission, surrenders all freedom of action, 
almost all freedom of thought. Every personal feeling is 
superseded by the interests of the cause to which he devotes 
himself. He goes wherever ordered, he performs whatever 
he is commanded, he suflers whatever he is enjoined ; he be- 
comes a mere passive instrument for the most part incapable 
of resistance. The graduation of ranks is only a graduation 
in slavery. I desire to become a good and practical soldier 



Letters 351 

and strategist, one whose labor and conduct no enemy will 
ever laugh at in battle, no friend ever find insufficient, as 
such, to serve my country so long as she may need my ser- 
vices or until they cease to be valuable. 

As for this country I am in, I feel perfectly incapable of 
conveying an adequate idea of the dreary lonely nakedness 
that surrounds me. The curse of Babylon has fallen upon 
it. It is "a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness." I 
have in former letters adverted to the peculiar geological 
formation of the chain of bluffs upon a portion of which I 
am now encamped. The chain is about three hundred miles 
in length, always on the east side of the Mississippi, and as 
some geologist asserts has been blown up, formed like snow- 
drifts by the action of the wind in former ages. Be this as it 
may, the face of the country upon them has very much the 
appearance of a succession of snow-drifts upon which a sud- 
den thaw has begun to act. The top soil has no tenacity, 
although fertile, and when broken for cultivation, yields like 
sugar or salt to the action of the elements. The country is 
not undulating but broken in precipitous hills ; deep ravines, 
gorges, and defiles mark the ways. Upon the hillsides not 
too steep for the passage of the plough, where have been the 
old cotton-fields, the land lies in hillocks, resembling newly- 
made graves. And as the area upon which the great staple 
could be produced is extensive, one may ride for many 
miles over what, with little stretch of imagination, may be 
considered an immense graveyard. To add to the gloom 
and desolation, are the charred remains of burned dwellings, 
cotton sheds and cotton-gin houses, gardens and peach 
orchards laid open and waste, negro quarters unroofed, long 
lines of earthworks and fortifications, trenches and rifle-pits, 
traversing roadways, cutting in their passage hamlet or dwell- 
ing, plantation and wilderness. Huge flocks of buzzards, 
ravens and carrion crows, continually wheel, circle, and 
hover over the war-worn land. The bleaching bones of 
many a mule and horse show where they have held high 
carnival, and for them much dainty picking still remains, as 
the spring rains wash off the scanty covering of the soldiers 



352 Thomas Kilby Smith 

who have gone to rest along the banks of the Yazoo. The 
patriot veteran who packs an ' ' Enfield " is as a general rule 
superficially buried in his blanket, if he falls in battle, on 
the spot where he falls, unless, wounded, he crawls to a 
sheltered nook to find a grave — happy, then, if he 's buried 
at all. Many a corpse I 've seen swelled up and black, with 
its eyes picked out, which, while it was a man, had dragged 
itself for shelter and out of sight, and been overlooked by 
the burial fatigues. This, as father used to say, is a digres- 
sion. Ofi" from the cultivated lands are canebrakes, dense 
jungles of fishing poles of all sizes. The little reed of which 
they make pipe stems that grows as thick on the ground as 
wheat stalks in a field, and the great pole thirty feet high 
and as thick as your wrist. Occasional forests, and there 
some of the trees are majestic and beautiful ; not a few 
of them evergreen, one, the name of which I cannot get, 
with a bright green spiked leaf bearing a beautiful bright 
red berry, grows large and branching and shows finely. 
The magnolia is evergreen. I send specimens of both in the 
box, though I fear they will wither before they will reach 
you ; also some of the moss that attaches itself to every tree 
that grows, and some that don't, or rather, has done grow- 
ing and are dead. Through this country I have penetrated 
in all directions where there are roadways and where there 
are none, and sometimes have had a high old time in finding 
my way. The better portion of the inhabitants have aban- 
doned — some refugees at the North, some in the rebel army, 
some fled to Georgia and Alabama, the few that remain are 
the poorest sort of white trash. This element, as a general 
rule, is Union in sentiment. They possess strange character- 
istics common to the class wherever I have met them in 
Tennessee, Arkansas, or Mississippi, but not in Louisiana. 
They are ignorant, and rather dirty, I mean uncleanly, in 
their habits, always miserably poor and miserably clad, and 
yet, the women especially, possessed of a certain unaccount- 
able refinement and gentleness almost approaching gentility. 
The children are pretty, even with the unkempt head and 
grimy features. Men and women always have delicate 
hands and feet, the high instep and Arab arch is the general 



Letters 353 

rule. There 's blood somewhere run to seed. There is 
great suffering among the people of all classes, and the end 
is not yet. I enclose you one or two intercepted letters. 

In the jungles and canebreaks and the thickets of the 
forest there are many cattle and hogs running wild ; some 
are Texas cattle that have escaped from the droves of the 
rebels while they were in occupation ; some have escaped 
from our own droves ; some have belonged to the planters, 
and have been run off to prevent their falling into the hands 
of either party, and so long have they been neglected that at 
last they have become wild, almost like buffalo, or elk, and 
run like the devil at the sight of man on foot or horseback. 
These animals we sometimes circumvent, and I make up ex- 
peditions for that purpose, taking out wagon-trains, shooting 
and butchering the beef and pork, and hauling it in dead. 
The wildness of the animals gives these forays the excite- 
ment of grand battles and hunts. The meat is excellent, 
and my mess table since I have been here well supplied. 
Thrice since I have been here I have journeyed to head- 
quarters at Vicksburg, and twice have been visited by the 
general commanding, McPherson ; with these interv^als, I 
have been without companionship. In the evenings I sit 
quite alone, except I have a terrier puppy I brought with 
me from Natchez, who seems disposed to become social. 
Last winter at Young's Point, and indeed ever since I have 
been in the field till now, I have been most fortunate in 
social commune. General Sherman has been a host to me, 
and while he was within ten miles I was never at a loss for 
somebody to talk to. General Stuart was a very fascinating 
man, and I have never been very far away from General 
Grant and staff. But now I am quite alone, and for two 
months have hardly heard the sound of a woman's voice. 
My horses are a great comfort to me, and, thank God, are 
all well ; I am much blessed in horseflesh. Captain is gay 
as a lark ; no better little horse ever trod on iron. He 's as 
game to-day as a little peacock. My other horses you never 
saw. They are superb and sublime. Bell is confessedly the 
finest horse in the army, East or West. J. L. is well and 



354 Thomas Kilby Smith 

growing. He starts to-morrow morning at three o'clock 
upon an expedition to the Yazoo River to give battle to 
some wild ducks. I have no faith in the expedition. 

My command of infantry will all re-enlist as veterans ; the 
major part of my cavalry. General Sherman, I learn to-day 
by telegraph from Vicksburg, was there for a short time. 
I did not see him. I have a telegraph office and operator for 
my own use, and am in communication with Vicksburg and 
the other headquarters over a considerable extent of country. 
I can tell you nothing further that I think would interest 
you concerning my inner life here, so far away for the time 
being, and for certain purposes I am an independent chief- 
tain leading a wild enough life. " No one to love, none to 
caress. ' ' 



Headquarters First Brigade, 
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Hebron, Miss., Feb. 2, 1863. 
My dear Wife : 
We broke camp yesterday and are now on the march. 



Camp on Peari, River, ten mii.es S. W. of 
Canton, Mississippi, February 27, 1864. 

My dear Wife : 

I have opportunity to send a single line to assure you that 
I am safe and well. A glance at the map of Mississippi will 
give you our line of march and present location. The rail- 
way is marked from Vicksburg due east through Warren, 
Hinds, Rankin, Scott, Newton, I^auderdale, and Clark 
Counties, to the extreme western border of the State. My 
command has been to Enterprise and Quitman. I am now 
on Pearl River in Madison County, near Madisonville, within 
about seventy (70) miles of Vicksburg. Fire, havoc, deso- 
lation, and ruin have marked our course. The blow has 
been terrible, crushing. The enemy have fled before us like 
frightened deer. The whole railway system of the State is 
broken up. The railway I have indicated shows our path- 



Letters 355 

way through the State. We have not yet heard from our 
cavalry. 

My health is excellent, my horses have stood the journey 
well and the troops of my command are all well and in fine 
spirits. To-daj' is the twenty-seventh of the march ; we 
have covered some three hundred and fifty miles. 



Headquarters First Brigade, 
Fourth Div., Seventeenth Army Corps, 
Camp Hebron, Miss., March 5, 1864. 
My dear Wife : 

I have only time to write a single line giving the assurance 
of my personal safety and the crossing of my command over 
Black River, with but few casualties, after one of the most 
extraordinary marches known to modem warfare. The 
particulars I will give you as leisure serves hereafter. 



Headquarters First Div., Red River Expedition, 

Detachment Seventeenth Army Corps, 

ViCKSBURG, Miss., March 9, 1864. 

My dear Mother : 

I have promised myself the pleasure of writing you a long 
letter, in which I should essay some attempt at description 
of the expedition from which we have just returned ; but 
scarcely have I taken a long breath ere I find myself ordered 
upon active and increasing service. I am highly compli- 
mented by my commanding generals, and promoted to the 
command of a division composed of picked men and the very 
flower of the Seventeenth Army Corps, with instant orders 
to embark for the Red River. I shall probably report to 
General Banks and my destination is still South. My trust 
is delicate and highly responsible, my command magnificent. 
No hope of home or furlough this smnmer. I had a vague 
and latent hope that having served so long and as I believe 
so faithfully, that opportunity might offer for at least the 
preferring of a request for leave ; but I never yet in this war 



35^ Thomas Kilby Smith 

have seen the time that I could ask a furlough, being always 
on the march or in the presence ot the enemy. 

Enclosed please find the rough notes most hastily thrown 
together from which was blocked out the official report of 
the expedition. It is doubtful whether you can decipher 
or make sense of them — certainly more than I can do. It 
is all I have time to oflfer you^ and with the aid of the map 
it may serve as some guide. We traversed the entire State 
of Mississippi from the river to the border due east, driving 
the enemy at all points. Completely destroj^ed the railway 
system of the State and returned leisurely, living for the 
most part upon the country. It may chance that I have op- 
portunity to write you from the transports, in which case be 
sure you shall hear from me. Give your earnest prayers for 
the success of this expedition. It may be the turning-point 
of my military career. I am standing now on a dizzy height, 
lofty enough to make a cool head swim. I feel the power 
within me to rise to the occasion. Confidence is half the 
battle, but all is with God. 

I have met General Sherman frequently upon the march, 
and to-day saw him for a little while. He is the man for 
the Southwest. The expression is trite, but he is the Na- 
poleon of the war. In time to come you will revert to some 
of my former letters and believe that I have written with a 
prophetic pen. 

My sword sash and belt have at last arrived, most costly 
and elegant. Said, aside from the jewels, to be more elegant 
than the one presented to General Grant. I wish it was at 
home to place among the archives. Much too valuable for 
field service. There are two sashes, Russia leather belt and 
gold sword-knot, all enclosed in rosewood box, lined with 
white satin and blue velvet. 

There will be a General A. J. Smith in this command, 
with whom I will be confounded continually. He is my 
superior officer, an old man, and an old regular army soldier 
graduate of West Point. I have been with him in battle on 
three occasions. He is gallant. 



Letters 357 

Headquarters Div. Seventeenth Army Corps, 

Red River Expedition, Fort De Russey, 

AvoYEi,i<ES County, Louisiana, March 17, 1864. 

My dkar Wife : 

My last hurried letter to you was dated from on board ship 
at Vicksburg. The fleet of transports under my command 
sailed from that point at seven o'clock, Thursday, loth inst., 
arrived at mouth of Red River and reported to Admiral 
Porter on Friday at noon. At 10 a.m., Saturday, sailed up 
Red River and Atchafalaya under orders and signals from 
flagship Black Hawk, to Simmesport. Morning of Sunday 
debarked my troops for inspection, review and drill by regi- 
ments. At seven o'clock p.m., received marching orders, 
and at 8 p.m. marched, bringing up the rear of the column, 
repaired bridges through the night, roads for greater part of 
the way bad and swampy ; bivouacked at 4 a.m., Monday, 
eight miles from Simmesport. Meanwhile, Gen. A. J. Smith, 
with General Mower's command, had reconnoitred the front, 
driven four regiments of the enemy from a fortification, situ- 
ate some five miles from Simmesport, and was making across 
country for Moreauville on Bayou L' Eglise. Gave my troops 
rest two hours ; at six o'clock took up the line of march, 
moving forward rapidly till eleven o'clock, when I halted, 
ordered cofiee for the men and fed the animals. Meanwhile 
pioneers were reconstructing bridge destroyed by the enemy. 
At noon resumed march which till this time had led us for 
the most part through a rich and highly-cultivated country 
past extensive canefields and sugar-houses, now crossing a 
bayou and penetrating a swamp spreading some few miles be- 
fore us. Ascending a slight elevation, we suddenly emerged 
in one of the most beautiful prairies imaginable. High table 
land, gently undulating, watered by exquisite lakes occasional 
groves, the landscape dotted with tasteful houses, gardens 
and shrubberies. This prairie, called Avoyelles, is settled 
exclusively by French emigrSs, many of whom, as our 
army passed, sought shelter under the tricolor of France. 
Pushing forw^ard rapidly, we gained Marksville at 4.30 p.m. 
Deserters had warned us that the enemy were on our left 
flank and rear as early as three o'clock. My troops were 



358 Thoinas Kilby Smith 

well closed up. Two and a half miles beyond Marksville, I 
formed line of battle at 5.30, my right resting immediately 
on the left of the advanced forces. My transportation and 
ambulances parked far to the rear. As my command came 
to front, brisk musketry firing commenced at the fort. Some 
shells fell to the rear and right of my line. I was ordered 
by the general commanding to look well to my rear and left 
wing, that I might anticipate attack from General Walker 
with six thousand Texans. I stood to arms. At 6.30 news 
was brought me that the fort had surrendered. I threw out 
heavy pickets, stacked arms and went into bivouac, a pierc- 
ing cold " Norther " sweeping over the plain. In summary, 
I remark that the command on the 14th inst., marched 
twenty-eight and a half miles, built a substantial bridge of 
sixty feet in length, repaired minor ones, and took a fort 
between sunrise and sunset. But one brigade. Colonel 
Ward, commanding, was actively engaged ; their casualties 
nine killed, thirty-seven wounded. The substantial results I 
enclose in memorandum of ordnance and ordnance stores, 
to which may be added a large amount of commissary stores, 
flour, beef, sugar and molasses, and three hundred and 
thirty-four prisoners, thirty-four of whom were officers from 
lieutenant-colonel to third lieutenant. 

Meanwhile, convoy and fleet had made slow and devious 
way through the tortuous windings of Red River, where 
navigation at present stage of water is difficult. Rapid cur- 
rent, frequent eddies, sharp bends and snags, are the natural 
obstacles ; to these the enem}^ added rafts and spiles ; never- 
theless, as the fort surrendered, the Black Hawk rounded to 
land shortly afterwards the general commanding received the 
congratulations of the Admiral, whom he will compliment 
by present of the nine-inch Dahlgren, of the Indianola, and 
the two heavy guns of the Harriet Lane, recaptured. My 
command is in occupation of the fort, and will be engaged 
to-day and to-morrow in the demolition of the casemates, 
bridges, etc. , etc. , and finally the blowing-up of the maga- 
zines, in which we shall permit to be destroyed vast quantities 
of powder. The main body under command of General 
Mower, convoyed by Admiral Porter, sailed last night for 



Letters 359 

Alexandria, where I expect to join them in three days. 
Gen. A. J. Smith remains with me, and gunboats Essex and 
Benton, Captains Grier and Townsend. 

A glance at the map will give you my present locality 
without the aid of sketch ; but I will enclose herewith draft 
and dimensions of fortifications that you may intelligently 
answer questions ; to which end, indeed, I have written you 
a sort of condensed report. If you have not " Colton's " 
maps, you had better buy first volume, North and South 
America ; meanwhile you can borrow and trace me down 
the Mississippi, up the Atchafalaya, pronounced " ChafaHa," 
to Simmesport, across country to Marksville, from thence to 
Fort De Russy, on the Red, thence up the river to Alex- 
andria. 

Thursday, i8th March, on board steamer Hastings, Red 

River. 

I resume, having no opportunity as yet to forward de- 
spatches. Having destroyed fort and blown up magazines, 
am now en route for Alexandria. Weather most charming, 
river winding through fertile, productive country. I find 
it impossible to write, however, with any comfort, the ma- 
chinery- going ; shall close at Alexandria. 

Arrived at Alexandria at this 6 p.m., after a pleasant 
passage without incidents ; discover upon our arrival that 
the enemy, some fifteen thousand strong, have evacuated, 
leaving three field-pieces and an immense amount of com- 
missary stores, cotton, sugar and molasses. My fleet is 
moored on the east side of the river, opposite the town, and 
I have debarked my troops, throwing out heavy pickets, my 
scouts informing me that two thousand of the enemy's cav- 
alry are in my front, and propose to make a dash this night, 
a threat I don't beHeve, but am ready for their reception. 
Have received a despatch within a few moments, stating 
that General Lee, of General Banks's command, was at 
Opelousas, on the i6th, with five thousand cavalry, and that 
General Banks, with fifteen thousand infantry, was on the 
march. We are ahead of Banks some five days. I am jot- 
ting down incidents as a sort of diary ; hardly know whether 
it will ever reach your eye. 



360 Thomas Kilby Smith 

You must be careful to trace me properly on the map. 
The children will not be set back in their geography by fol- 
lowing their father's footsteps in imagination. I wish I had 
you all here this night. I have just been ashore inspecting 
my troops, and rarely has the mellow moonlight fallen upon 
a more romantic scene. The plain is level, covered with 
grassy sod, and studded with clumps of underbrush, of a 
growth that at night I can not distinguish; there is ample 
room to move about and sufficient verge for line of battle. 
The bright arms glittering in the moonlight are stacked 
upon the color line, the soldiers lie, each covered with his 
blanket, behind their arms; there are no camp-fires ; the 
videttes, far in advance, can be distinguished, dismounted, 
but each man at his horse' s head and ready at the blast of the 
bugle to mount; the moon is clear and the stars all out, the 
atmosphere serene. The gunboats lie far above and below, 
the transports between. One can scarcely look without a 
yearning for the power of word-painting to convey a portion 
of his pleasure, as well as regret that all the world, at least 
his friends in it, cannot share his feelings. There is a pe- 
culiar fascination in this wild, dangerous life, a continued 
exaltation and exultation ; mine have been the joys of victor, 
continuous and continued. I have never known defeat ; 
onward and onward, victory after victory, casting behind 
me, as my horse throws dust, clouds of prisoners. Three 
hundred and thirty-four brave men I sent down under charge 
of one of my lieutenant-colonels yesterday. This must 
change, sometime, doubtless. I may be called to-morrow, 
to captivity in sackcloth and ashes. God give me strength 
to bear, if the evil day comes. I write wildly and hurriedly 
to-night. To-morrow, perhaps, I shall have leisure to give 
you something like a home letter. Did I say I wish you 
were here ? God forbid, except that you might be trans- 
lated straightway back. 

Friday, March 19th. A messenger has just arrived with 
despatches from below, and a mail, but no letters for me. I 
have nothing of importance to add, hardly enough in what I 
have written to repay perusal ; you must not permit yourself 
to suffer anxiety on my account ; the good God whose arm 



Letters 361 

till now has shielded me will care for me to the end. It may 
be permitted us to meet again and again I may enjoy the 
pleasure of home. If not, let us all pray that we meet in 
Paradise. 

I see by some newspapers that are brought with this mail 
that the expedition into Mississippi is misrepresented and 
misunderstood. I assure you it was entirely successful and 
all was accomplished that was intended or desired. 



Al,EXANpRiA, La., March 24, 1864. 

My dear Mother : 

We have had some skirmishing in making reconnaissance, 
and have taken one entire battery, horses and harness. 
Some four hundred prisoners and some six hundred horses. 
General Banks has not yet arrived, but is momentarily ex- 
pected. The country on the north side of the river is pine 
woods and for the most part barren, though rolling and 
beautiful on the south side — that upon which Alexandria is 
situated. It is exceedingly rich and very highly cultivated 
in cotton and sugar plantations. Corn, clover, and other 
grasses grow, the clover especially, with wonderful luxuri- 
ance. The perfectly flat nature of the country gives a same- 
ness that is wearisome, but at first view the beauty of the 
plain, as one rides through the plantations, is enchanting. 
Hereabouts they are all well-watered by the bayous and 
these can be led by ditching in any direction. The planters, 
taking advantage of this, have beautified their grounds with 
lakes and wandering streams, upon the shores of which 
to the water's edge grows the white clover, carpeting the 
ground at this season with its rich green leaves, the sod cut 
away for parterres and flowerbeds, all shaded with beautiful 
pines, Japan plums, pride of China, and others, the names 
of which you would not recognize, of the beauty of which you 
can hardly form an idea. Their houses are not very elegant. 
The Southerner as a general rule does not care much about 
his house ; so that it has plenty of piazza (gallery, as they 
call it here), is painted white, with Venetian blinds at all 



362 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the openings, he is satisfied. Some of the wealthiest of them 
have spent their lives in log houses, and the wigwam at 
Mackacheek would be entirely en regie as the mansion house 
of a sugar estate. They find all their enjoyment in the open 
air, and shelter from the rain and night dew is all they ask. 

The inhabitants hereabouts are pretty tolerably frightened ; 
our Western troops are tired of shilly shally, and this year 
will deal their blows very heavily. Past kindness and for- 
bearance has not been appreciated or understood ; frequently 
ridiculed. The people now will be terribly scourged. Quick, 
sharp, decisive, or, if not decisive, staggering blows will soon 
show them that we mean business. I anticipate, however. 

The State of Louisiana founded a Seminary of IvCarning 
and Military Academy, not long since, of which General 
Sherman, by election, was made superintendent, and which 
he abandoned to take up arms for his government. The 
building is a fine, large, very expensive one, situate some 
four miles from Alexandria, and was thoroughly provided 
with all the adjuncts of a large college. It has recently been 
used as a hospital by the rebels. The people cherish the 
name of General Sherman, and mourn his loss. He had 
great popularity here. My newspaper dates are to the 14th 
inst. My news very vague. I have the intelligence of the 
promotion of Ivieutenant- General Grant, General Sherman 
and General McPherson. This is all right. With the old 
woman I may say to you, " I told you so." One year ago 
there was a fearful pressure made against all these officers. 
Grant and Sherman especially. Where are those, now, who 
villified them ? I do not know if you preserve them, but I 
must ask, if you do, to look at some of my letters written 
during last February and March. 

Mississippi Squadron, Flag Ship " Cricket," 
Alexandria, April 29, 1864. 
My dear Wife; : 

I am safe after a most severe campaign. I had three 
fights, battles, on my own hook, inasmuch as I had the 
honor of bringing up the rear of the army to this point. 
These three fights were exclusively my own, and in every 



Letters 363 

instance entirely victorious. I have only time to say that 
my opinion is, we (I mean A. J. Smith's command) will get 
through safely to the Mississippi ; after that, there will be 
work enough for us. I will give you full details so soon as 
opportunity offers. Meanwhile, rest assured of my health 
and personal safety. Admiral Porter is safe and sitting by 
my side as I write. He is a noble fellow, game as a pheas- 
ant; so is old A. J. a perfect trump. 

I hope you are all well. I am in first rate spirits, stiff 
upper lip, " never say die." Do not be discouraged about 
me in the slightest degree. We can whip these fellows 
whenever we get the chance. 



Steamer "Silver Moon," 
Mississippi River, near Cairo, Ii.i<, June 9, 1864. 
I am on my way home and may reasonably be expected 
by you on Monday, 15th, by the morning up train, God 
willing and weather permitting. My retinue is small, as I 
am on brief furlough. You will only need to make prepara- 
tions for three servants, two male, one female, four horses, a 
small dog and myself. You need not put yourself out, as the 
horses and servants are used to bivouac. 

QuiNCY, Sunday, Oct. 24, 1864. 

My dear Mother : 

After strange, and what would be considered in any other 
age, romantic vicissitudes, I find myself once more in the 
land of my birth, with the same surroundings, changed so 
little as to be a marvel, that made my sum of childhood life. 
I have had for years an earnest longing to look again upon 
the everlasting hills, the eternal rocks, and changing seas 
of this New England coast, and being so near could not re- 
sist the temptation to gratify my desires. I am glad I came, 
and feel much benefited in health and spirits. I have met 
most of our kith and kinsfolk who, like their trees, are rooted 
in the soil. 



364 Tho7nas Kilby Smith 

To-day, thus far, I rest ; if you were witli me to join in the 
calm enjoyment, the serenity of happiness, the sweet content 
of this glorious, autumnly sunny Sunday, that is mine, here 
so close to my birthplace, hallowed to you by so many recol- 
lections, I should be supremely blest, " to sit at good men's 
feasts, to hear the holy bell that knolls to church, ' ' far from 
war and war's alarms, the bracing breeze rustling the leaves 
all tinged with the hectic hues of autumn, just ready to fall, 
but lingering, clinging to the swinging bough, giving sweet 
music as to the wind they sing their parting lay ; to listen to 
the pattering of children's feet upon the bridge where my 
first footsteps ventured, the babbling of the same old brook, 
here confined between trim borders, there in its freedom mer- 
rily dancing in the sunlight ; to wander through the same old 
rooms, sit in the same old chairs, eat from the same old 
spoons, hear the familiar household words from the same lips 
that well-nigh half a century ago gave greeting. Ah, well- 
a-day, you and I are growing old, dear mother, and as we 
drift by rapidly upon the stream of time we clutch convul- 
sively at these old landmarks and for a while would fain 
stay our progress onward to the boundless gulf that is be- 
yond. We cheat ourselves in thought, that in good sooth 
we do linger, while even all else is passing away, that while 
inanimate objects, that from associations seem self-identi- 
fied, remain apparently unchanged, we, by mere contact, re- 
juvenate our stay, or receive the virtues of the waters of 
Lethe. Yet, when the real comes back, it is good to know 
that in imagination we have triumphed over time, that in 
mere enjoyment of imagination, we have caught some 
glimpse of the glorious immortality yet to come. 

HeadquartiERS Armies oe the United States, 
City Point, Va., Nov. 16, 1864. 

I write not to give interesting intelligence, but simply to 
advise you that I am in the land of the living, at City 
Point, on James River, that waters the sacred soil, and that 
I am about as far to the front on my way to Richmond as it 
is this day safe to go. 



Letters 365 

The James reminds me a good deal of the lower Missis- 
sippi, and so far as I have come, its banks are studded with 
points of interest, and historical in the war. At Fort Mon- 
roe, I saw the finest fleet that, perhaps, has ever been col- 
lected in the American waters. Leaving Washington in a 
steamer for this place, I passed Alexandria, Point Look- 
out, Harrison's Landing, Newport News, Fort Powhatan, 
Wilson's Landing, Jamestown Island. If the children will 
look at the map, they will discover that we descend the 
Potomac, scud along Chesapeake Bay, and at Fort Monroe 
ascend the James, so that they can get upon my track. 
There is no news here proper for me to write. General 
Grant is in good health and spirits and I hear as late as last 
Wednesday from Sherman, who also is well. 



Headquarters Armies of the United States, 
City Point, Va., Nov. i8, 1864. 

I wrote a hurried note to wife a day or two ago upon 
my first arrival at General Grant's headquarters, simply to 
advise you all of my health and well-being. I was received 
here with open arms, unfeigned, and bounteous hospitality. 
I proposed returning with the General the day after my 
arrival, as he was about paying a visit to his wife at Bur- 
lington, but he pressed me to remain and inspect the lines, 
for that purpose mounting me on his own best horse with 
his own equipments, and assigning his chief aide-de-camp as 
my escort. The day before yesterday I rode the lines of 
the ' ' Army of the James. ' ' For this purpose a steamboat 
was detailed which took me up the river to a point just 
above the famous " Dutch gap" canal, where the extreme 
left of the army now under command of General Butler rests. 
Mounting our horses, we struck the field works at this point, 
and rode the whole circuit, visiting each fort en route, not 
forgetting the famous " Fort Harrison," which cost us so 
dearly to wrest from the enemy ; we were frequently in sight 
and within rifle range of the enemy's pickets, indeed at 
points within an hundred and fifty yards, and almost with 



366 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the naked eye the lineaments of their countenances could be 
discerned ; but we were not fired upon, for both armies on 
these lines decry the abominable practice of picket shooting, 
which for the most part is assassination, save when works 
are to be attempted by assault, and, relying on each other's 
honor, observe a sort of truce. I was so often within gun- 
shot of them this day, and they so well observed the tacit 
understanding, that I did not dismount as is usual in ex- 
posed places, but always from the saddle made careful survey 
of their works. I rode as close as three miles from Rich- 
mond, whose spires could be discerned glittering in the hazy 
distance. General Butler had not then returned, but I was 
glad to be able to renew with my old friend General Weitzel 
then in command, an acquaintance formed at Port Hudson, 
which ripened into intimacy at New Orleans. He is an ele- 
gant fellow, and well worthy of the honors he enjoys. You 
may be sure he was glad to see me, and that he did all one sol- 
dier can do to make another happy, giving me his personal 
escort through the whole day. I also called upon General 
Terry, also in command of a corps, and two or three brigadiers. 
Their lines of fortifications display splendid engineering, their 
army in good condition and spirits, and the soldiers in first 
rate fighting trim. The enem}^ lies at short distance like a 
couchant tiger watching for the expected spring. There will 
be desperate fighting when we close. At night I re-embarked 
and returned to these headquarters. Yesterday our horses 
were placed upon a special railroad train provided for the 
purpose, and after breakfast we started for the headquarters 
of General Meade, commanding the Army of the Potomac. 
At " Meade's Station " our horses were unshipped and we 
mounted, riding a short distance to the general's tent. He 
received me with profound respect and consideration, ex- 
cused himself upon the plea of urgent business from giving 
me personal escort over the lines, but assigned his chief aide- 
de-camp, Colonel Riddle, who gave me guidance. I rode 
through his entire army of sixty thousand infantry, and sur- 
veyed their lines of fortifications, in close view of the lines 
of the enemy, and of the town of Petersburg. It would be 
neither proper for me, nor interesting to you, to give close 



Letters 367 

description of all I saw ; suffice it to say, that I found a 
splendidly appointed army in tip-top condition, behind 
works that, well-manned, are impregnable, close to an 
enemy who are watching with argus eyes and making de- 
fences with the arms of Briareus. I called in the course of 
the day upon Major- Generals Parke and Warren. Parke I 
knew at Vicksburg, and should have called upon Hancock, 
who had made preparation to entertain me, but the night 
was closing in murky with promise of storm, and I felt com- 
pelled to hasten to the depot. Thus in these two days I 
have made very extensive reconnaissance, inspection and 
survey of these two great armies upon the movements of 
which the destiny of a nation, if not of a world, seems to 
rest. An incident occurred yesterday that may serve to in- 
terest the children. We often were, as on the day previous, 
very close to the picket lines and fortifications of the enemy, 
and upon one occasion, as we halted to make close observa- 
tion of a certain point, the enemy sent over a dog with a tag 
of paper attached to his collar, upon which was written, 
" lyincoln's majority 36,000." We detached the paper, 
offered the dog something to eat, which he refused, turned 
him loose, when he forthwith returned to his master. Surely 
this is one of the ' ' dogs of war. ' ' 

I have been called off from writing, a moment, to be intro- 
duced to General Butler, who has called, and who invites me 
to dine with him to-morrow. If the day is not very stormy 
I shall go to his headquarters. 



At Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Baltimore, 
Washington, I have been really oppressed, overwhelmed, 
with polite attentions. In the War Department, every 
officer I met, the Secretary, the Adjutant-General, the 
Assistant, were eager to give facilities. So at the Treasury, 
where I had occasion to transact some business. The Post- 
master-General, our Mr. Dennison, promptly offered me 
every politeness, and here at these headquarters, from the 
General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States down, 
all have done me, and all have seemed eager to do me honor. 



368 Thomas Kilby Smith 

I am informed that none others save the General, since he 
has come into his possession, has ridden or been offered his 
favorite horse, a magnificent animal, which, caparisoned 
with his own splendid housings, he ordered for me, and has 
left subject to my order while I remain. His Chief of Staff 
offered me the General's tent and bed during his absence ; 
this I refused. I am the honored guest at the long mess- 
table. Well these are trifles in themselves, but taken to- 
gether are gratifying to me and will doubtless be to you. I 
am very proud to have the good opinion of my commanding 
generals. I believe I mentioned to you in a former letter 
that I had introduced myself to the President, who was 
pleased to say he had heard of me, and who, in our inter- 
view, was exceedingly polite. Of course, I take all this just 
for what it is worth, and nothing more, and should be mean 
to attempt self-glorification upon the reception of courtesy 
that costs so little. But I am writing to my mother, and to 
her I cannot refrain some hints of my position towards those 
who are now most prominent in the world's history, and v/ho 
give countenance and support to me, because I have cheer- 
fully given my humble efforts to uphold the glory of a nation, 
the sustaining of a wise and beneficent government, the 
crushing of an unholy rebellion, the exposition of a devilish 
heresy, the elevation of truth as opposed to error. Those 
efforts for a while have been paralyzed and even now I am 
warned that the flesh is weak. I am not as I have been. 
This poor abused body fails me when the spirit is most 
strong, and truly with me is the conviction forced, that just 
as I am learning to live I must prepare to die. And the 
world and its glories to me are so pleasant. No day, no night, 
is long, " every moment, lightly shaken, runs itself in golden 
sands." My comrades are fast passing away. You have 
noted, of course, the death of poor Ransom, my comrade in 
battle, my bosom friend, whom I dearly loved. After being 
four times wounded in battle, he went back to the field to 
die like a dog of this disease, this scourge of the soldier, 
dysentery. I saw his physician a day or two ago, who told 
me his bowels were literally perforated. He retained his 
mind clear to the last moment, said he was dying, and called 



Letters 369 

in his staff as lie lay in his tent to take a final leave, and 
issue a final order. How much better to die as McPherson, 
with the bullet in the breast. I sometimes think my health 
is improving, and I run along for several days feeling pretty 
well, but I have had recent evidence that at this time I am 
unfit for active service in the field. A Major-General's 
commission is just within my grasp, but a week's march and 
bivouac, I fear, would give me mj^ final discharge. Still, it 
is all as God wills. The God of Heaven has watched over 
all my steps, and with that careful eye which never sleeps, 
has guarded me from death and shielded me from danger. 
Through the hours, the restless hours of youth, a hand un- 
seen has guarded all my footsteps in the wild and thorny 
battles of life, and led me on in safety through them all. In 
later days still the same hand has ever been my guard from 
dangers seen and unseen. Clouds have lowered, and tem- 
pests oft have burst above my head, but that projected hand 
has warded off the thunder-strokes of death, and still I stand 
a monument of mercy. Years have passed of varied dangers 
and of varied guilt, but still the sheltering wings of love 
have been outspread in mercy over me; and when the 
allotted task is done, when the course marked out by that 
same good God is run, then, and not till then, shall I, in 
mercy, pass away. Meanwhile, give me your prayers, dear 
mother, for in your prayers, and in those of the dear good 
women who remember me in their closets, alone with their 
God, do I place all faith. Pray for me that I be not led into 
temptation, that I may be delivered from evil. 

We do not hear from General Sherman, but we have the 
fullest faith that all will be well with him, and that he will 
accomplish his great undertaking. My own command is by 
this time with Thomas at Paducah. Say to Joe and Mar- 
garet, that the same servants are about General Grant's 
headquarters, each man remaining true at his post, that they 
all inquired after Joe and Margaret and old Uncle Jeff, and 
that all of them were very much mortified when I felt com- 
pelled to tell them that Uncle Jeff had abandoned me. They 
were all glad to hear that Joe and Margaret were married, 
and all sent kind messages to them. General Rawlins's 



370 Thomas Kilby Smith 

little black boy Jerry has got to be a first rate servant, and 
so has Colonel Duff's boy Henry ; Douglass, and General 
Grant's William, are all on hand. Colonel Dufi"'s sorrel 
horse, John, that great walking horse he was afraid of, the 
one that used to run away and that he got me to ride (Joe 
will remember him), was captured by the enemy. The Gen- 
eral's little bay stallion, he thought so much of, is dead. 
He sent the cream-colored stallion home. I write this to 
interest Joe. Tell him to keep quiet, that I shall soon be 
home, and don't want him to leave me till the war is over, 
and then I will make provision for him. 

Just as I am writing now, I am being complimented by a 
serenade from a splendid brass band. I would give a good 
deal if you were all here on the banks of the James, to hear 
the thrilling music, though I should want you away as soon 
as it was over. My best and dearest love to all my dear 
ones. 

Blessings rest upon you all, forgive my haste and crude 
expressions. It is always hard to write in camp, but impos- 
sible almost to me with music in my ear. 



Headquarters Armies of the United States, 

Nov. 27, 1864. 
My dear Wife : 

My last was dated from headquarters at camp. I am now 
sojourning for a day or two in the city of Washington, ar- 
ranging my business with some of the departments. I shall 
head towards the West before long, and have the pleasure 
of greeting you all on my way to the field. It is a good 
while, weeks, since I have had a line or intimation of any 
kind from home, but I steel my heart to anything approach- 
ing anxiety, maintain a firm faith that Providence will order 
all things as is best for us all and bide with confidence his 
decree. My health is better a good deal than when I left 
home, and though from time to time I am caught up by 
the old trouble, I think, on the whole, I am steadily on the 
mend. There is no doubt as to the chronic nature of the 



Letters 371 

disease that will remain with me during the rest of my life, 
but some years of usefulness may yet be spared me. My 
visit to the headquarters of General Grant was very agree- 
able and of very considerable advantage to me. 

I have no lack of courtesy wherever I go, and here in 
Washington feel compelled to lie perdu and preserve a strict 
incognito, lest I suffer from the kindness of my friends. 

I enclose a rosebud gathered on the banks of the James, 
in the close vicinity of the contending armies ; it was liter- 
ally the last rose of the summer then, for that night a heavy 
frost fell, and my plucking saved it from a black death ; it 
still maintains its hues, though I have carried it in my 
pocket for a week, and I hope will not be quite withered 
ere it reach your hand. 



LomsviLi^E, Ky., on board Str. " Huntsman," 

Thursday, Dec. 22, 1864. 

Arriving yesterday morning at lyouisville, I found myself 
too late for the morning train to Nashville, and of course 
was compelled to lie over. The circumstance was fortunate, 
inasmuch as the train was thrown from the track and the 
passengers who started were compelled to return. Discover- 
ing that the road was not in first rate working order, I de- 
termined to go round by water, and am now about taking 
my departure on the steamboat Huntsman, that, if we have 
good wind and meet with no guerillas, will put me in Nash- 
ville on Monday next. I expect to spend Christmas on the 
Cumberland River. 



On board Str. " Huntsman," 
Cumberland River, Christmas, 1864. 

We left Louisville Thursday evening last and, just as 
the boat was shoving off, I indicted you a brief note. 
We have progressed thus far, having a few moments since 
left Fort Donaldson without accident. Fort Donaldson, as 



372 Thomas Kilby Smith 

you are aware, was the scene of General Grant's first great 
victory, and the starting-point to his present greatness. I 
caught but a bird's-eye view of the fortifications ; from the 
river side they seem almost impregnable. It is now garri- 
soned by some twelve hundered troops. All the way to this 
point we have been warned to keep a bright lookout for 
guerillas, this boat being the pioneer from Louisville. I 
have apprehended no danger and feel satisfied that so far as 
these gentry are concerned we shall reach our destination 
unobstructed. The anniversary, as usual, brings no joy to 
me, save that, to-day, I have leisure in quiet to make a 
retrospect of the past. Last Christmas I passed on the banks 
of the Yazoo, reviewing the field of battle on which I had 
fought just a year prior to this time. How fraught with 
events to me these years have been, and now I wonder 
where my next Christmas will find me. 

I thought when I started to keep something like a log or 
diary of my wanderings, but so thorough a nomad have I 
become, so used to the current events of everyday travel, 
especially by steamboat, that something of a really startling 
nature must transpire to make me think it worth while to 
note. I would renew a former injunction to follow my 
course on the map. Trace me down the Ohio to the mouth 
of the Cumberland, and up. It will be a good way for the 
children to learn something of the geography of the country 
by following in imagination their father's wanderings, in 
thousands of miles through various States from the Gulf of 
Mexico to the extreme New England coast. It will seem in- 
credible to you, until after careful study, how much I have 
passed over within the past year, and all without the slight- 
est accident from the perils of navigation or travel by land. 
I lay me down at night to sleep with the same confidence 
with which I share your pillow ; I wake in the morning to 
find myself hundreds of miles from where I had my last 
waking dream or dreaming thought. The bird of passage is 
hardly fleet enough of wing to outstrip me in my wandering. 
The weather was very cold the day we left Louisville, the 
next still colder but clear and beautiful and the morning sun 



Letters 373 

rose and glittered upon one of the strangest scenes I have 
ever witnessed in nature. A very heavy fog rose from the 
river about one o'clock, and settling upon the trees and 
shrubs imperceptibly froze and gathered until everything 
that had a spray was clothed with the lightest feathery tex- 
ture that can be imagined, lighter, purer, whiter than the 
softest driven snow, and each little flake looking like a small 
plume, all nodding and waving to the passing air ; all this 
the sun shone upon from a cloudless horizon through rosy 
tints and such a sunrise has rarely been witnessed. The 
captain of our boat, an old man, who has been upon the 
river thirty years, saw no sight like it, and the common- 
est deckhand looked on with rapture at the beauty. All 
day under a bright sun, but with a freezing atmosphere 
we glided through the drift of a full and rising river, and, 
by starlight, kept on through the night coursing the bends 
and running the chutes bank full ; the next day was warm, 
and yesterday, as we struck the mouth of the Cumberland, 
the air was soft and balmy as a day in May. We are run- 
ning now nearly due south, but a light rain is falling ; it is 
a soft, green Christmas here. No passengers on the boat; 
Joe and the horses, and oflScers and the crew, all. We are 
freighted with iron and lumber, oats and corn. I tread the 
deck sole monarch of the steamboat. The Cumberland 
winds through high banks of limestone rock, rich with 
iron and coal, occasional bottoms fertile for corn, but the 
rolling land back thin and sterile. 

26th. — Detained at Clarkesville by the unwarrantable in- 
terference of the officer in charge of the gunboat fleet who 
deemed it necessary to give us convoy against guerillas, lay 
there all night and until 9 a.m. of the 27th, which passes 
without event. Scenery on the river beautiful, high rocky 
cliffs of limestone, iron in abundance in these hills. Arrived 
at Nashville about two o'clock in the morning of the 28th. 
City dirty and disagreeable ; has been the abode of wealth, 
as evidenced in the splendid architecture of the private 
dwellings, but everything now shows the brunt of war and 
war's desolation. 

I find many friends and am hospitably entertained at the 



374 ThoTuas Kilby Smith 

quarters of General Sawyer, General Sherman's Adjutant- 
General. The military are all agog at the good news from 
Sherman, but everybody here is as ignorant as I am of 
Hood's movements, of Thomas's intent. I have telegraphed 
to Gen. A. J. Smith, who is far to the front, but as yet re- 
ceive no response. Railroad communication will be opened 
soon, we hope, to near the front, when I shall progress as 
soon as possible. 

P. S. — You may have noticed in the papers that the train 
from Louisville to this point was attacked and captured, and 
that thus travel by rail was interrupted. With my usual 
good fortune, I have escaped this calamity, and it is doubly 
well with me that I came by boat. 



Headquarters Military Division oe the Mississippi, 
Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 30, 1864. 

I was inexpressibly gratified by the reception your afiec- 
tionate letter of 26th inst., handed me to-day. It came just 
in time, for I have my orders, and am about leaving for East- 
port, Mississippi, via Paducah, and a steamboat is in waiting 
to carry me down the Cumberland and up the Tennessee. 
I shall debark close to the old battle-ground of Shiloh. 

I shall probably take command of a division made up from 
my old division and another in Smith's corps. After a little 
there will be a new organization entire of the army here, and 
I shall hope to be recognized. 

Str. "Clara Pos," Cumberland River, 

NEAR Paducah, January i, 1865. 

My dear Mother : 

I am waiting to coal and for a convoy and soon shall be 
with my command, I hope. I am mortified to learn here, 
within a few moments, that Hood has succeeded with the 



Letters 375 

remnant of his army in crossing the Tennessee upon the 
shoals ; we disabled two of his guns and captured a portion 
of his pontoons, but for a while he has escaped, and this may 
materially disarrange the plan of our campaign. 

The weather continues very pleasant, and we are well pro- 
vided with food. 



On board Flag Ship " Fairy," 
Up Tennessee River on the Alabama Side, three 
MILES ABOVE EastporT, January 6, 1S65. 

My dear Wife : 

My heading will show you my position, that you can the 
better learn from the map. I am now, in point of fact, 
within the Alabama lines. I reported the day before j^ester- 
day to Major-Gen. A. J. Smith, at Clifton, Tennessee, in 
person, and immediately received the following order : 

"Special Orders) ^^^^^^^jj_ 
"No. 3. i 

" Brig.-Gen. Thomas Kilby Smith, U. S. V., having re- 
ported at these headquarters for duty, is hereby assigned to, 
and will at once assume command of, the Third Division, 
Detachment Army of the Tennessee. 

" Col. J. B. Moore, now commanding the Third Division, 
is hereby relieved from such command, and will report to 
Brig.-Gen. T. K. Smith for assignment. 

" In relieving Colonel Moore, the Major-General com- 
manding desires to express his high appreciation of the able, 
thorough, and soldierly manner with which he has executed 
the trust confided to him in the command. 

" By order of Major-Gen. A. J. Smith, 

"J. Hough, Asst. Adjt.-Gen." 

I have transcribed the order in full because it contains a 
well-deserved compliment to a soldier of my own making, 
and who received all his training from me, and who has 
done full justice to his preceptor in the important responsi- 
bilities thrust upon him in my absence. I have not yet 



376 Thomas Kilby Smith 

assumed command, because I am reconnoitring the river 
with Gen. A. J. Smith, upon Admiral Lee's ship, with a 
view to position and the debarkation of our troops. Admiral 
Lee, who is in command of the Mississippi Squadron, has 
been immensely polite to me, and has made me quite at 
home with him. All my officers, and those at General 
Smith's headquarters, have expressed much joy at my re- 
turn, which I assure you is mutual ; on my part I am grati- 
fied beyond expression in being once more restored to my 
command and associated with my comrades in arms. I 
write under some difficulty, for the boat is shaking exces- 
sively, and I can hardly keep my pen to the paper, but as a 
despatch boat will be sent down this evening, I avail myself 
of the opportunity, as I do of each that presents itself, to ad- 
vise you of my movements and physical condition. My 
health is tolerably good ; I am not as well as when on the 
Cumberland, and from two causes — the weather is murky 
and the Tennessee water unwholesome, added to which my 
food has not for two or three days been as good as usual, and 
I suffer from the confined air of the boats. Heretofore I 
have had the boat exclusively to myself, but since arriving 
at Clifton, there has been a necessity for transportation of 
troops and the boats are all crowded with soldiers. How- 
ever, I am every way better than I expected to be at this 
time, and certainly have no right to complain. Joe and the 
horses are in good care, and when we get to some place I 
will write you a long letter. 

Since writing the above, our boat has stopped at Eastport, 
and I have been ashore on horseback with General Smith, 
reconnoitring the country, and such a desolate, cursed, 
God-forgotten, man-forsaken, vile, wretched place I have 
never yet seen in all my campaigning. If I shall have to 
stay here long, I shall well-nigh go crazy. We hear Hood 
is moving south ; his pickets disappeared from this place 
night before last, and there is what has been for them a 
strong fortification. There are but two or three families 
left, and they in the last stages of destitution ; whenever 
you offer a prayer, petition that you or yours may never be 



Letters 2)77 

in the war-path. You read of horrors of war, but you can 
form no conception of those horrors until you are an eye- 
witness of its results upon the inhabitants of the country 
where it has raged, where they have been, as they usually 
are, the prey of both contending parties. I shall probably 
go down the river as far as Clifton, where my own command 
is, to-morrow, to be governed by circumstances that may 
transpire after my arrival. As the case now stands, in all 
probability, I shall go into winter quarters somewhere here- 
abouts, and General Thomas's orders are " Eastport." My 
third winter in the South does not promise more comfort 
than the two that have preceded it. Four winters ago it 
was Camp Dennison and Paducah, the next Young's Point, 
before Vicksburg, in the swamps, the next between the 
Black and Yazoo Rivers, the worst country, save this, I 
ever saw, and this winter, here, up the Tennessee. I think 
I have had my share of the dark side of the war, but my 
motto is, a stiff upper lip, and never say die. If health, the 
great desideratum, is spared, the rest will come. General 
Garrard, one of Mrs. Mclvcan's sons, is here. His head is 
as bald as an egg, and he looks to be a thousand years old. 
War adds age fast. 

You must address your letters to me as General command- 
ing Third Division Detachmeyit Arvty of the Tennessee, via 
Cairo. I suppose I shall stand a chance of getting them 
sometime within a month or less. 



Eastport, Miss., January lo, 1865. 

Our fleet arrived here this morning, and I am just debark- 
ing troops in the muddiest, worst country I ever saw. For 
some days past, as I wrote you in a former letter, I have 
been upon the flag ship of Admiral Lee, commanding the 
Mississippi Squadron, and have been very comfortable ; the 
almost entire rest has been favorable to my health. I shall 
now be compelled to rough it ashore, but I think I shall get 
through. 



37^ Thomas Kilby Smith 

General Thomas, I this moment learn, is expected here 
to-day. 

The weather is warm, raining, muggy, and intensely dis- 
ageeable, a warm Southern winter such as we had at Young's 
Point. 



Headquarters Third Division, 

Detachment Army of the Tennessee, 

IN THE FiElvD, Sunday, Jan. 15, 1865. 

I am now once more fairly in the field, and at the head of 
my command. My tent is pitched upon a pleasant knoll in 
a very hilly, almost mountainous country, from whence I 
have a view of the Tennessee river, and parts of three States, 
Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. The ground is 
gravelly and the forests pine, so that I keep comparatively 
dry ; the floor of my tent is carpeted with pine boughs that 
make a pleasant smell. For some days past the weather 
has been delightful, clear, bright and warm, yet bracing. 
Already the rose and briar are putting forth green leaves and 
bulbous roots are springing from the ground. The atmos- 
phere is about as it would be in your latitude, say the ist of 
May, or thereabouts. My health improves, bowels decidedly 
better, appetite pretty good, and the most that troubles me 
now is a tendency to take cold, cold with an irritation of the 
throat. This is to be expected, for I could hardly go from 
careful nursing directly into the field without some shock to 
the system. 

My command is not yet thoroughly organized, and I have 
some new appointments of staff ofiicers to make ; in the 
course of a day or two I shall publish ni)^ staff, and will send 
you a copy. ... I have three brigades ; our detach- 
ments are about being organized into a corps of three divi- 
sions, each division of three brigades. The division com- 
manders are General McArthur, General Garrard (Kenna 
Garrard of West Point, oldest son of Mrs. Mclycan), and 
myself, all under command of Gen. A. J. Smith. 

A laige mail has come to-day with the fleet that brought 




BRIQADIER-QENERAL THOMAS KILBY SMITH, 

WASHINGTON, 1864. 



Letters 379 

up General Thomas and troops, but I am disappointed in 
finding nothing for me. 

Washington, D. C, January 25, 1865, 

You will doubtless be surprised at the heading of this 
note. On the 17th inst. I received from the Secretarj- of 
War a telegram ordering me to repair without delay to the 
Adjutant-General of the United States. The same day Gen- 
eral Thomas ordered a steamboat to transport me to Paducah, 
from thence I came hither almost on the wings of the wind, 
staying neither for fog, flood, nor mountain pass, though I 
was befogged near Louisville, and snowed up one night in 
the Alleghenies. Still, considering the distance, I made 
marvellously good time, and arrived here last night. I dis- 
cover that I have been summoned to appear before the Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War (of Congress), probably to 
testify in reference to the Red River expedition. 

I shall know to-morrow. My stay here will be only tem- 
porary, and I shall probably from here be ordered back to 
Eastport or wherever my command is. You may think it 
strange that I could not stop for at least a day, but I 
dared not. I had been pretty well up to the time I was 
ordered here, but that very day my old complaint came 
back upon me with great violence and lasted every day of 
my journey, and I feared to make a halt lest I should be de- 
tained as I was before. To-day I am a good deal better. I 
have not heard one word from home since the letters that 
reached me at Nashville. 



Washington, D. C, February 7, 1865. 

If I can get permission, I shall stop for a day to see you, 
as I return to the field, unless, indeed, as there is some rea- 
son to suppose, I be transferred to another command. I am 
offered a splendid division in the cavalry service. . . . 
But if I take it I am brought right into the Army of the Po- 



380 Thomas Kilby Smith 

tomac, and I can't bear to lose my Western boys, or the 
broad Savannahs in the South, where I hope glory yet awaits 
me. I have been to some parties and some receptions, have 
paid my respects to most of the Secretaries and to the Presi- 
dent and his wife, and altogether have been having a pretty 
good time here in Washington. My mind has been relaxed 
and relieved, and it has done me good. 



Headquarters District oif South Alabama, 
Fort Gaines, Ala., March 23, 1865. 

My dear Mother : 

A glance at the map will show you the locality of ' ' Dau- 
phine Island ' ' and Fort Gaines, my headquarters for the 
present. It is just beyond Grant's Pass, at the entrance of 
Mobile Bay, about twenty-eight miles from the city of 
Mobile, and about one hundred and eighty miles from New 
Orleans. The island is not many miles in circumference, 
and, save on one side, the view from it is only bounded by 
the horizon, it has little vegetation but pine trees, and the 
surface is covered with fine, white perfectly clean sand, 
almost as free from impurities as snow. The beaches are 
fine, and the music of the surf is always in my ear. Oysters 
and fish of the finest varieties abound and I have every 
facility for taking them. I have never seen oysters so fat or 
of so delicate flavor, and I am told that they are good and 
wholesome every month in the year. I am fortunate in 
having secured a most excellent cook, whose specialty seems 
to be the preparation of oysters, and really I have eaten no 
other food except bread since I have been here. During 
present operations, and until I move to headquarters, I shall 
be in daily communication with New Orleans, newspapers 
from whence reach me within twenty-four hours of publica- 
tion. The air here is most delicious, and is said to be highly 
salubrious. From time immemorial the citizens of New 
Orleans and Southern lyouisiana have resorted here for the 
benefit of health, and these islands, and the coast near by 
have been ever free from the ravages of yellow fever. I 



Letters 381 

look southward over the open sea towards Havana, and it is 
from the West Indies that the pleasant south wind comes. 
My health improves, my bowels have not troubled me for a 
good while, and under God I am blessed with the most 
favorable opportunity possible to recuperate my well-nigh 
exhausted energies. 

My anxiety will be great until I hear of the return in safety 
of my dear wife. I left her in what to her was an embarrass- 
ing situation, and I am proud to say she governed herself 
like a true heroine, and though left entirely alone in a 
strange hotel, in a strange city, and among entire strangers, 
she bore herself at my sudden departure like a true soldier's 
wife, without a whimper. I left Walter on the street with- 
out a good-bye. I pray to God they have got home safe. 



Headquarters District of South Ai^abama, 
Fort Gaines, Ai,a., March 21, 1865. 
My dear Wife : 

I cannot express the sorrow and chagrin I felt at being 
compelled to leave you and our dear little boy so abruptly. 
I know it must be many days, that it may be many weeks, 
before I can with reason hope to receive assurance of your 
safety, and you may judge my present anxiety. Were it 
not for the fact that I have schooled my mind to dismiss 
apprehensions for the future, 1 should be heartsick indeed, . 
and whatever philosophy I bring to my aid, I shall not be 
happy till I learn of your safe arrival at home. I could not 
foresee so rapid a movement of troops or so urgent a necessity 
for my instant departure from New Orleans, or I should not 
have assumed the responsibility of bringing you down. And 
if anything untoward happens, my conscience will never 
cease to reprove me for an act selfish, if not unjustified, 
though apart from the pleasure of your society I hoped 
benefit to your health. 

The enclosed orders will show my command and present 
address. The latter I have reason to hope will very shortly, 
with my headquarters, be at " Mobile. ' ' Meanwhile, letters 



382 Thomas Kilby Smith 

addressed to me as commanding District Southern Alabama, 
will reach me via New Orleans. 



Headquarters District of South Ai^abama, 
Fort Gaines, Ai<a., March 26, 1865. 

My dear Daughter : 

Shall my letter to you, my sweet daughter, "rise to the 
swelling of the voiceful sea ? ' ' The ocean waters are in my 
ears continually, chafing and fretting, never by day or night 
one moment still. My house is close to the beach, so close, 
that the spray of the wave sometimes wets my window pane. 
The deep water is nearer to me, as I sit to write, than the 
little grass plat before the front door to you as you stand in 
the threshold. The last sound that I hear, as I turn to 
sleep, is the wave on the shore ; the first object that greets 
my eye as I wake in the morning, is the wave dimpling in 
the calm dawn or throwing up its white caps in the freshen- 
ing breeze. And all about me tells of the great deep and all 
its wonders. You have never yet seen the ocean, vay dear 
child ; nor much of those who go down to the sea. When 
its vast expanse meets your eye, you will be wonderstruck. 
All the day you can watch by its shore and never weary. I 
wish you, with your sister and brothers, could be with me to 
wander on the beach and gather some of the beautiful shells 
that are washed on the sands, and watch the breakers and 
the roll of the surf, and stand at evening and see the sun go 
down, plunging with his last dip, apparently, into the sea 
itself, and then throwing up his long rays like arms in agony. 
Sunsets at sea are very beautiful, and very suggestive of 
beautiful thoughts. I have got a nice little island here 
about ten miles long, and in the widest part about two miles. 
I wrote to grandma the other day that it was all covered 
with white sand, and that there was no vegetation save 
pine trees ; but I was mistaken, for I have found one or two 
pretty garden plots, and in one of them peach trees, and 
lemon and orange trees, were in bloom. I have found some 
very old orange trees a good deal thicker at the trunk than 
your body, and as high and branching as any apple tree you 



Letters 383 

ever saw. There used to be several families on the island, 
but the commandant sent them all away to New Orleans. 
They made a little livelihood by catching oysters and fishing 
for the Mobile market, and some of them burned the oyster 
shells into lime. You would be astonished at the great 
banks of oyster shells there are here, showing what a pro- 
digious quantity of the creature is raked up from the beds, 
which are yet apparently inexhaustible. 



Headquarters District oe South Ai,abama, 
Fort Gaines, Ai,a., April 4, 1865. 
My dear Wife : 



As to Mobile, in my judgment, it is going to be a long 
siege. The general impression was that there would be a 
speedy evacuation, but the attack has been so long delayed, 
that the enemy have had full opportunity to fortify and are 
making a most obstinate resistance. They have filled all 
the approaches by land and water, with torpedoes ingeniously 
contrived, and concealed in every channel and avenue ; so 
thickly strewn, that though we have picked up a large num- 
ber, three fine gunboats and many lives have already been 
lost by them. The torpedo is made of wood, thickly coated 
on the outside with pitch and tar so as to be quite water- 
proof, is somewhat in the shape of a cigar, and eighteen 
inches thick, tapering at both ends, in which there is a 
vacuum, the middle portion being filled with from fifty to 
one hundred pounds of gunpowder, which is ignited through 
brass tubes with copper ends, by means of friction and per- 
cussion powder. They are anchored just below the surface 
of the water, and sometimes several are attached by strings 
or wire. A vessel in passing over them produces the neces- 
sary friction, and the explosion, if immediately underneath 
the vessel is generally sufficient to blow a hole through the 
bottom and sink her. These I have described, are the water 
torpedoes ; those used upon the land are generally an eight- 
inch shell, that is, a cannon ball, hollow, eight inches in 
diameter, filled with powder and the fuse so arranged that a 



384 Thomas Kilby Smith 

pressure of ten pounds will explode them. They are con- 
cealed in the sand just below the surface, and the tread of a 
horse's foot, or the passage of a wheel, is sufl&cient to explode 
them, or even the pressure of a man's foot if put down hard. 
A staff officer, riding the other day, woke up from a state of 
insensibility to discover himself fifteen feet from the road- 
way, and the mangled remains of his horse that had been 
blown to atoms, he, by strange chance, escaping with the 
temporary loss of his senses and the bruises of his fall. The 
immense number of these shells and torpedoes scattered in 
every possible place on land or in water, renders the ap- 
proaches to Spanish Fort, that at present is the key to the po- 
sition, most difficult, and has made the navy timid and wary 
in the management of their ships, while our troops on shore 
have found a secret foe hard to combat. Every man feels 
that he is literally walking on the thin crust of a volcano. 
We have, however, thoroughly invested the fort, the garri- 
son of which now is supposed to number some six or seven 
thousand men, and will soon be able to cut it off entirely 
from Mobile. We shall then, I think, resort to sapping and 
mining, and it will become a question of time as at Vicks- 
burg. Meanwhile, our forces under Wilson, will attack from 
the other side, and the result, in my mind, though far off, is 
not doubtful. Still, we may have trouble from another 
quarter. As you know, I am not one of those who have 
been sanguine as to the speedy termination of the war, and 
have doubtless, by free expression of opinion in that regard, 
sacrificed a reputation I might have had for a wiseacre. I 
think before long we shall have something from Kirby 
Smith, and that when Richmond is evacuated, the war will 
have to be begun anew. The obstinate resistance they are 
making at Mobile, fortifies my preconceived opinions, that 
are of no great value, for all is in the hands of God, who will 
bring these troubles to a close in His own good time. Still, 
you must be patient, and not expect an early raising of the 
siege. 

I am comfortably situated at this time. I have a great 
deal of responsibility and a highly honorable position, if I 



Letters 3^5 

have rank enough to hold it. All the time, or nearly all the 
time I was a colonel, in fact, I may say all the time I was a 
lieutenant-colonel, I exercised the rank of colonel ; all the 
time, or nearly all the time I was colonel, I exercised the 
rank, duties, and responsibilities of a brigadier-general. And 
all the time I have been brigadier-general, the duties of a 
major-general have been thrust upon me. I have recently, 
as you perceive by the copies of orders I sent you, relieved 
Major-General Granger, and the labor, expense, and respon- 
sibility devolved upon him, now rests with me, with this 
difference— he had more staff and $1,200 per annum more 
pay. But I shall never get any more rank because I am a 
volunteer ofl&cer. The brevet I would not give a fig for ; 
they are so common that they do not confer honor, and they 
do not, under any circumstance, the old rule in that regard 
being changed, give more pay. 

Although in April, the weather is not yet unpleasantly 
warm, except in the sun ; indeed, I make it a point to keep 
a little fire, that is a good guard against malaria. The birds, 
among them my old friend the mocking-bird, have come and 
I send you blossoms that will fade before they reach you, 
but will carry some fragrance from the little island by the 
sea that is now my home. 

I have just been called from writing to receive a visit from 
Capt. J. R. Madison Mullany, an old oflQcer of the navy now 
commanding the U. S. S. Bienville, and commanding the 
squadron here. He is a very gallant oflScer and lost an arm, 
amputated close at the shoulder, in the capture of these 
forts. A recommendation of him to you will be the fact of 
his being a sincere and devout Catholic, and I was pleased 
to find him a courteous and finished gentleman, as most 
officers of the old navy were. 

Headquarters District oe South Ai^abama, 
Fort Gaines, Ala., April 9, 1865. 

I have this moment received news that Petersburg has 
fallen, Richmond evacuated, and Grant in hot pursuit of 



386 Thomas Kilby Smith 

lyce's retreating army. It comes to me vaguely; still, there 
are good grounds for the rumor. Our own siege drags 
slowly. I miss Sherman and Grant and my lamented friend 
McPherson. I don't find the old spirit down here ; still we 
shall succeed ; that is beyond all peradventure, our troops 
are in good spirits and there is no possibility of the enemy's 
escaping us. 

The weather has been cool here and generally pleasant. 
My health is not very good, and I have not been able to en- 
joy it. I think the malarial influence of my last summer's 
campaign is still upon me, and I doubt whether the sea air 
agrees with me ; but I keep about and attend to business. I 
am taking quinine in pretty large and frequent doses. I 
shall take all possible care of myself ; but I fear my old 
powers will never return to me. I ought not to complain, 
and strive to be contented ; but I am made conscious that 
the days are drawing near when the ' ' grasshopper will be a 
burthen." 



Headquarters District of South Alabama, 
Fort Gaines, Ala., April 11, 1865. 

I wrote you the day before yesterday, since which time 
the glorious news from Richmond I alluded to has been cor- 
roborated ; and meanwhile we have had great success before 
Mobile. Spanish Fort has been reduced ; carried by assault ; 
five hundred prisoners and an equal number of the enemy 
killed and wounded. " Blakely " has also been carried, and 
two thousand five hundred prisoners captured. It is now 
with us only a question of time, though the garrison at 
Mobile and the fortifications are still making an obstinate de- 
fence. The enemy fights with great gallantry, but must 
ultimately succumb. Our navy, in this siege, has not dis- 
played much enterprise or great gallantry. An excuse may 
be found in the demoralizing effect of the torpedoes that sunk 
three of their best ships. The particulars of the news you 
will get through the public prints before my letter reaches 
you. I hope my letters do reach you. I write often two or 



Letters 387 

three or four times a week. No letters to me from anybody 
yet save the three from you dated at Baton Rouge, Vicks- 
burg, and Cairo. I am really heartsick for letters from home. 
I sailed up Mobile Bay yesterday through the fleet and 
close in sight of the city, whose spires and housetops, wharfs 
and boats, reminded me of the distant views I used to have 
of Vicksburg during the siege. 



Headquarters District of South Alabama, 
Fort Gaines, Ala., April 19, 1865. 

My DEAR Daughter Bettie : 

I have just returned from Mobile, where I httve been so- 
journing for three or four days past, and you will want some 
description of the city and what I saw there. You must 
know that Mobile, the principal city and only seaport of 
Alabama, was the original seat of French colonization in the 
southwest, and for many years the capital of the colony of 
Louisiana. I shall transcribe for you a little bit of history, 
while for its geographical position you must go to the map. 
In 1702, Lemoine de Bienville, acting under the instructions 
of his brother Iberville, transferred the principal seat of the 
colony from Biloxi, where it had been established three 
years previously, to a point on the river Mobile, supposed 
to be about twenty miles above the present site of the city, 
where he established a post to which he gave the name of 
' ' St. Louis de la Mobile. ' ' At the same time he built a fort 
and warehouse on " Isle Dauphine," at the entrance of 
Mobile Bay (where my headquarters now are). 

The settlement at Biloxi was soon afterwards broken up. 
In 1704, there was an arrival of twenty young girls from 
France, and the next year of twenty-three others, selected 
and sent out under the auspices of the Bishop of Quebec, as 
wives for the colonists. Many of the original settlers were 
Canadians, like Iberville and Bienville. In 1705, occurred 
a severe epidemic, supposed to be the first recorded visitation 
of yellow fever, by which thirty-five persons were carried ofi^. 

The year 1706 is noted for the " petticoat insurrection," 



388 Thomas Kilby Smith 

which was a threatened rebellion of females in consequence 
of the dissatisfaction with the diet of Indian corn, to which 
they were reduced. The colony meanwhile frequently 
suffered from famine as well as from the attacks of Indians 
although relieved by occasional supplies sent from the mother 
country. In 171 1 the settlement was nearly destroyed by a 
hurricane and flood in consequence of which it was removed 
to its present situation. In 17 12 the King of France made 
a grant of the whole colony to Antoine Crozat, a wealthy 
French merchant, and in the following 3^ear Bienville was 
superseded as governor by M. de la Motte Cadillac. In 17 17 
Crozat relinquished his grant to the French government, and 
Bienville was reinstated. In 1723, the seat of the colonial 
government was transferred to New Orleans. In 1763, by 
the treaty of Paris, Mobile with all that portion of I^ouisiana 
lying east of the Mississippi and north of Bayou Iberville, 
Lake Maurepas, and Pontchartrain, passed into the posses- 
sion of Great Britain. In 1780, the Fort, the name of which 
had been changed into Fort Conde, and subsequently by the 
British to Fort Charlotte, was captured by the Spanish Gen- 
eral, Don Galvez, Governor of Louisiana, and in 1783, its 
occupancy was confirmed to Spain by the cession to that 
power of all the British possession on the Gulf of Mexico. 
On the 13th of April, 1813, just fifty-two years before the 
time it had been taken possession of by General CanbA^ the 
Spanish Commandant Ga5^atama Perez surrendered the fort 
and town to General Wilkinson. At that period, the popu- 
lation, which in 1785 had amounted to eight hundred and 
forty-six, was estimated at only five hundred, half of whom 
were blacks. In December, 18 19, Mobile was incorporated 
as a city. Mobile is now a city of moderate size, a popula- 
tion of probabl}^ forty thousand inhabitants and before the 
war was opulent and characterized as the most aristocratic 
city of the South, though I suppose Charleston would dis- 
pute, or rather would have disputed, this point. There has 
evidently been a lavish display of money and many of the 
houses and public buildings are elegant and tasteful in their 
style and adornment. The luxuriance of vegetation in this 
climate gives great advantages in the adornment of the 



Letters 389 

streets and grounds with shade trees and beautiful shrubs, 
vines and flowers. The present season corresponds with 
June with you, and to me it was a rare and beautiful sight 
yesterday to look down the long vista of ' ' Government ' ' 
street, their principal avenue through the aisle of magnolia 
in full leaf and bloom, the pride of China, the crape myrtle 
and many other trees, the names of which I do not know, 
but all laden with bud and leaf and flower ; while in relief, 
the houses were wreathed with ivy, climbing roses, while 
the sweet-scented double violet added delicious perfume to 
the fragrance of countless varieties of standard roses. The 
people have great taste and wonderful love for flowers in the 
South ; even the ragged urchins and barefooted little girls 
carrj^ bouquets that would be the envy of a ball-room belle 
in Cincinnati. The streets are ver>^ broad, and have been 
paved with shells, but the sandy nature of the soil has 
caused them to disappear beneath the surface. The side- 
walks are brick, as in Cincinnati. The city was like a city 
of the dead. The principal men being in the army, were 
either prisoners or had fled. The ladies secluded themselves 
from the public gaze. A semi-ofiicial notice from the head- 
quarters of the rebel General Maury had warned them that 
General Canby had promised his soldiers three days' pil- 
lage ; consequently, the people, when our troops took pos- 
session, were frightened and anticipated all sorts of enormi- 
ties. Since, they have been in a constant state of profound 
astonishment. The drinking houses were all closed, and a 
rigid system of discipline has been enforced, quiet and order 
prevails. 

While in Mobile, I was the guest of General Canby, who 
has taken quarters at one of the best houses. I met there in 
the family of the owner a fair sample of the young and 
middle-aged ladies of the place, and the schoolgirls. 

Ever>-thing is as old-fashioned as four years non-inter- 
course with the ' ' outside barbarians, ' ' as they would style 
us, would be apt to induce. This in dress, literature, and 
conversation. You will hear that there is Union sentiment 



390 Thomas Kilby Smith 

in Mobile, perhaps that not more than ten per cent, of its 
people are secessionists ; but my word for it, that not a man, 
woman, or child, who has lived in Mobile the last four years, 
but who prays death and destruction to the " damned 
Yankees. ' ' 

Well, I have given you a birdseye view of the city. If 
there is anything more you want to know, you must ask. 
In case anybody should ask the question, you may say, that 
there were taken with Mobile upwards of thirty-five thou- 
sand bales of cotton, over a million bushels of corn, twenty 
thousand bushels of wheat, and large stores of tobacco. I 
don't think that mother, for some time hereafter, will be 
compelled to give a dollar a yard for domestics and double 
the price for calico. You must all have new dresses. I am 
glad to get back from Mobile to my little island. There the 
weather was warm and the air close and heavy, here I have 
always a delicious sea breeze. It is very cool and pleasant. 
I have a fine hard beach as level as your parlor floor, upon 
which I can ride for twenty miles and see the great ocean 
with its mighty pulses break at my feet. I have a little fleet 
of boats; one, a beautiful steamer called the Laura, that had 
been built by the rebels as a blockade runner, as quick as 
lightning and elegantly fitted up, was sunk a day or two 
since by running on to a pile. I am now having her 
raised again. I have also a beautiful little yacht, a light 
sailboat rigged as a sloop with one mast bowsprit and jib. 
She sails beautifully on the wind ; is large enough to carry 
half a dozen very well. I have just had her elegantly 
painted, and one of m}^ officers is to-day manufacturing a 
streamer for her. She has been called the Vivian, but I am 
going to change her name and rechristen her the Bessie a7id 
Belle. When I get a little more leisure I shall sail in her 
down to the coral reefs and fish for pompino, sheepsheads 
and poissons roiige. Oysters now are going out of season. I 
am told they eat them here all the year round, but to my 
notion they are becoming milky. I shall now take to crabs 
and fish. I have been keeping I^ent admirably. 



Letters 39 ^ 

You say you hope " peace will be declared." I should be 
glad, my dear daughter, to see your hopes fulfilled ; but 
peace will be long coming to our country and papa ; it would 
do to dream and talk of, but the snake is only scotched, not 
killed. Our hope may rest on a foreign war, and to-day I 
could unite many of our enemies to march with us under the 
folds of our own starry banner to fight the swarthy Mexicans 
or the dull, cold Englishman, but without this event we must 
fight on among ourselves for many a year to come. God 
grant our jubilee may not have rung out too soon. How 
long will it take the North to learn the South ? But these 
are questions, my dear daughter, not for your consideration, 
yet, at least. Study your books, my child, and learn to 
love God and keep his commandments, and when you pray, 
pray first for wisdom and then for strength, and if you 
want your prayers answered, study your books and go about 
much in the open air. 

I send you some lines you may put away in your scrap- 
book and when you get to be an old lady like grandma, and 
have your own grandchildren on your knee, one day you 
may get out the old battered book and read to them what 
your father sent you from the war. 

Headquarters District oe South Ai^abama, 
Fort Gaines, Ai.a., April 24, 1865. 

My dear Mother : 

You must not feel vexed, as you say you are, in reference 
to Carr's getting my command. 

The rough and tumble of an active campaign in this cli- 
mate at this season of the year, with my shattered constitu- 
tion, would be fatal. The wear and tear of the last four years 
has told upon me, and I am constantly warned to guard 
against exposure. Here I am comparatively comfortable, 
and though I cannot hope while exposed to the baleful influ- 
ence of malaria to be well, I may ward oflf prostrating sick- 
ness. So that, take the matter in all its bearings, it is 



392 Thomas Kilby Smith 

probably for the best that I should have been disposed of as 
I am for the present. 

You say in reference to the fall of Richmond that you 
** cannot but feel the key is reached and rebellion unsealed." 
It may be that it is unsealed ; but it is not yet crushed, and 
you need not lay the flattering unction to your soul that peace 
is at hand, or that the rebellion is crushed. I notice by the 
Northern papers that the people are drunk with joy and 
jubilee. Instead of maintaining a quiet dignity, tumultuous 
pressure has been made to grasp the enemy by the hand and 
to kill the fatted calf and welcome the prodigal back. The 
rebels laugh in their sleeves. The North has not yet learned 
how to make war upon its adversary. But I don't intend to 
croak or play the bird of ill omen ; the signs of the times are 
pregnant ; millions of people in this nation are going up 
and down smarting with a sense of personal injury, mourning 
brothers, sons, husbands, fathers, sweathearts slain, home- 
steads burned, altars desecrated, property destroyed. There 
is no peace with these in this generation. In my judgment, 
there is just one hope for us now, and that is a war with a 
foreign power that would have the effect of uniting the bel- 
ligerents. I have now prisoners with me, three generals and 
their staffs, I^iddell, Cockrel, and Thomas. I guarantee that 
I can enlist all or the major part of them to go with me to 
Mexico or Canada to fight under the stars and stripes. But 
they won't go home to be contented. Neither men nor 
women will consent to go back to ruined plantations, de- 
populated cities, abandoned villages, and, without the aid 
of the peculiar institution, essay to rebuild, reconquer the 
wilderness, recreate a fortune without grumbling, and the 
bitterness of spirit will soon find occasion for fresh outbreak. 



Headquarters District of South Ai,abama, 
Fort Gaines, April 29, 1865. 
My dear Wife; : 

Your very interesting and afiectionate letter of 23d March, 
apprising me of your safe arrival at home and of your adven- 
tures by the way, was received. 



Letters 393 

Truly, you passed through great peril and vicissitude, and 
are now prepared to somewhat appreciate my life upon the 
road for the past four years. We feel called upon to thank 
God whenever we graze a great danger, that is visible and 
tangible, forgetful that the same care is constantly over us, 
in the unseen and impalpable peril in which we alwa5'^s move. 
But it is well with us occasionally to look danger in the face, 
that we may form the proper estimate of our weakness and 
frailty, eliminated from God's care, while we learn that with- 
out danger there is no greatness, that in the hazardous con- 
flicts where life is ventured, high qualities only are developed. 

What canting nonsense do we occasionally hear in certain 
quarters to disparage mere personal courage, ' ' mere personal 
courage ! " We are reminded that the ignoble quality is 
held in common with the bulldog, and that in this essential 
he is our master ; we are reminded that it is a low and vul- 
gar attribute, that neither elevates nor enlightens, that the 
meanest creatures are often gifted with it, and the noblest 
natures void of it. But we may be sure that without it, 
there is neither truth nor manliness. The self-reliance that 
makes a man maintain his word, be faithful to his friendship, 
and honorable in his dealings, has no root in a heart that 
shakes with craven fear. The life of a coward is the voyage 
of a ship with a leak, eternal contrivance, never-ceasing 
emergency. All thoughts dashed with a perpetual fear of 
death, what room is there for one generous emotion, one great 
or high-hearted ambition. I congratulate you that in the 
presence of danger, you were not frightened, that you did 
not lose your presence of mind, but felt able to put forth 
your best powers for the emergency that might have been 
near. 



There is very little in my life here now, that is of suflScient 
importance to entertain you in detail. It is five days since 
I have had news from the outside world, and I hardly know 
whether we have war or peace in the land. My health is 
pretty good and I am perfectlj^ comfortable, so far as shelter, 
food and raiment can make me comfortable. I have abun- 



394 Thomas Kilby Smith 

dance of fish, flesh, and fowl, and plenty of whiskey, brandy, 
wine and ale, though I am making very sparing use of any 
kind of stimulants. I have had some fine birds, snipe, peep, 
plover, and a splendid shore bird, the ' ' sickle billed curlew, ' ' 
as large as a barnyard fowl. Mother will remember father's 
often speaking of them. I miss my family, and continually 
regret that I had not kept you and Walter with me, for up 
to this time I could have made life here for you very agree- 
able. Here I find myself using the word " regret " again, 
when I well know, humanly speaking, it is better as it is. 
Yet, philosophize as I will, comes that increasing, unwearied 
desire, that is with us in joy or sadness, that journeys with 
us and lives with us mingling with every action, blending 
with every thought, and presenting to our minds a constant 
picture of ourselves, under some wished-for aspect, different 
from all we have ever known, when we are surrounded by 
other impulses and swayed by other passions. ' ' Man never 
is but always to be blessed." 

The weather has been delightfully pleasant, an occasional 
storm and one or two sultry days, but I have not been called 
upon to dispense with winter garments and sleep comfortably 
under two blankets. The sea breeze is alwaj^s fresh, and it 
is charming in the evening to ride upon the hard and per- 
fectly level beach and see the breakers dash in surf and 
foam on the shore. The air then becomes perfectly pure 
from the ocean and is wonderfully exhilarating. The horses 
become so much excited as to be difficult of control , and the 
Captain, the best broken horse of the times, has frequently 
become with me wholly unmanageable. You would be 
amused to see him capriole and play with the waves, dash- 
ing close to the brink as they recede and advance, and re- 
joicing in the cool spray. But everything about me is con- 
stantly damp. My arms always rusty, my buttons dimmed 
and black, and the paper on which I write almost as wet as 
if it had passed through the water. I believe this climate 
would be favorable to persons with pulmonary complaints. 
I have been a good deal exposed, but never take cold, or if 
I do, it does not make itself apparent by sore throat, cough, 
sneezing, or anything of that kind. At the same time I 



Letters 395 

must say that the atmosphere is undoubtedly malarial and 
no science or skill can guard against malaria. 

Intelligence now comes that the rebel General Dick Taylor 
has asked terms of surrender, and that General Canby has 
this day gone to arrange, also that General Hurlbut has 
gone on a mission to Kirby Smith. So that this department 
is fast winding up the rebellion in this quarter. 

Headquarters District of South Ai,ab.\ma, 
Fort Gaines, Ala., April 26, 1865. 

I had somewhat of an adventure yesterday, and came near 
imitating the wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl. 
I have a pretty little sailboat with capacity for four or five 
people, and the day being fair and the sea smooth, I con- 
cluded to go over to Sand Island, distant four or five miles 
from here, just at the mouth of the bay. With my adjutant 
and a crew of two sailors, I set sail about nine o'clock in the 
morning, and with a favoring breeze soon made my point of 
destination. Anchoring my little ship, I went ashore, made 
examination of the lighthouse, and after a stroll upon the 
beach, it being near noon, made preparations to return ; but 
no sooner had I weighed anchor than I discovered the wind 
was dead ahead and a strong tide was beating out to sea. 
Nevertheless, I spread my sail, and by tacking to and fro, 
sought to beat up against wind and tide ; in this endeavor 
we rounded the point of the island, and, to the dismay of 
my crew, soon discovered we were drifting out to sea ; for- 
tunately, we at this time had not got quite into the channel, 
and by bending on all the spare rope to our anchor cable, 
were able to touch bottom and ride in safety. It was now 
three o'clock, and I determined to lie down and get a nap, 
hoping that in the course of an hour or two, the tide, which 
was rushing past us at the rate of six miles an hour, would 
turn, and that, by the help of a breeze, we would be able to 
turn the point. I slept a couple of hours, pleasantly rocked 
by the swell of the waves, but woke to find my hopes disap- 



39^ Thomas Kilby Smith 

pointed. The tide was rushing by more furiously than ever, 
the wind had died away, and to make matters worse, our 
anchor was dragging, and we were rapidly going to sea. 
We had had no food or water since breakfast, and there was 
nothing to eat or drink on board. We had no compass, and 
as the lighthouse began to sink below the horizon, and the 
pine trees grow dim in the rays of the declining sun, the 
prospect was anything but encouraging. But hope came to 
us in the shape of a tug, that was towing a large schooner 
out through the channel. We watched her with anxious 
eyes, till she had taken the ship to the ofl&ng, and then 
turned to go back to the bay. She passed within some three 
miles of us, and we made signal with our white handker- 
chiefs displayed from the top of our little mast, but in vain. 
She steamed along regardless of our motions and went back 
to the bay. That hope was gone, and remembering the story 
of the Irish pilot, who followed the big ship night and day, 
till he had crossed the ocean, I determined to keep the 
schooner in sight as long as I could, and to that end spread 
sail and endeavored to get into her wake. But in vain ; the 
wind would not blow, and the sail flapped limp. We got 
just headway enough to throw us into the channel and sped 
along towards the Atlantic Ocean about as fast as a horse 
could trot. Our situation was not enviable ; we were out of 
the bay, fairly in the gulf, and the heavy rollers of the ocean 
tossed our frail little bark like an &%% shell. We had to sit 
steady to keep her trimmed, and feared that if the wind we 
had prayed for an hour before came, we should be capsized, 
for she was flat-bottomed, and not in ballast. However, I 
kept a stifl" upper lip, and directly, when hope had almost 
fled, discovered the tug again steaming down, towing a large 
ship. We now made every effort to throw ourselves across 
her forefoot, and not caring so much about drifting to sea, 
as to so change our course that we might get within signal 
distance, succeeded in making some way towards the ap- 
proaching vessels, but again the tug cast off" and returned as 
before. Now was really an anxious moment ; one handker- 
chief was displayed at the masthead, the other I made the 
adjutant wave, standing in the prow. The pilot of the tug 



Letters 397 

saw us, rounded to, and in a few moments I was aboard and 
my little vessel towed astern. We were picked up ten miles 
below Sand Island, and fairly out to sea, and, as we have 
been informed since, in a channel that has hurried more than 
one little craft to destruction. Not long since two profes- 
sional pilots were drawn into and carried out to perish. But 
as we say, ' ' a miss is as good as a mile, ' ' only that the next 
time I go to sea I shall take some grub and some water and 
a compass, and ' ' if the court know herself, as she think she 
do, ' ' I shall hardly venture in a craft not much bigger than 
a washing tub. One is never out of danger in this world. 
The other day I was riding the colt, who was fractious, and 
cavorting around with me, jumped into a well ; he succeeded 
in struggling out before he had reached the bottom, and fell 
heavily on his side with my right leg under him ; of course, 
people thought my leg was broken, and that the beast would 
roll over upon me, but he did n't, and the leg was only 
bruised. 

So I have had two more warnings that man is mortal, that 
as to circumstances and events he is like a thistledown wafted 
upon the autumn breeze, that a day, an hour, nay, the pass- 
ing moment, may terminate his earthly existence ; that, 
without note or warning, he may be summoned to the 
presence of his Maker, to the report of the deeds done in the 
body. 



MOBII^E, Ala., May 17, 1865. 

My dear Wife : 



We have news this morning that Jeff Davis has been ar- 
rested and sent to Washington under guard. It remains to 
be seen if Johnson has the grit to put him through, or if he 
is not made a lion and a martyr of, and permitted to go scot 
free. 

I have been for a few days past, and still am, a very 
favored guest of Madame Octavia Walton I^eVert, who has 



398 Thomas Kilby Smith 

been more kind to me than words can tell. She has been 
friend, mother, most delightful companion to me. A very- 
noble woman, she fully deserves the splendid encomiums 
that have been so freely lavished upon her at home and 
abroad. I have forgotten if before I have alluded to her 
history, that, perhaps, you are familiar with ; even if such 
is the case, it will do no harm to again advert more particu- 
larly to your husband's friend. I have been somewhat of 
an invalid, and she has nursed me, and been so sweetly 
kind to me, that I can hardly write too much about her. So 
I shall make no excuse for quoting very freely from a grace- 
ful biographical sketch of her history by Mary Forrest, who 
edited the Women of the South, among whom she ranks her 
as prima donna. Frederica Bremer calls her the " sweet 
rose of Florida," and she certainly is a rose that all are 
praising. George Walton, her grandfather, was one of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence, was wounded at 
the head of his regiment at the siege of Savannah, \vas a 
member of Congress (the first convened at Philadelphia), and 
afterwards held successively the offices of Governor of 
Georgia and Judge of the Supreme Court. He married Miss 
Camber, the daughter of an English nobleman, a short time 
before the Revolution. Madame lycVert has now in her pos- 
session many letters addressed to Colonel Walton by General 
Washington, Lafayette, the elder Adams, Jefferson, and other 
noted men of those days, expressive of their high confidence 
and regard. 

George Walton, the second, married Miss Sally Walker, 
the daughter of an eminent lawyer of Georgia. In 1812, he 
became a member of the legislature of Georgia. In 1821, he 
was appointed Secretary of State under General Jackson, 
then Governor of Florida, and, when the old chief retired to 
the ' ' Hermitage, ' ' succeeded him in office. He was himself 
succeeded by our old friend of Washington memory, Gover- 
nor Duval . . . whom you doubtless remember. Here 
I may be permitted to say, par parenthese, that as a high 
compliment and one accorded to but few guests, I have been 
assigned to what was the private chamber of Mrs. Walton, 
and have been sleeping upon a bed and bedstead upon which 



Letters 399 

General Jackson slept for years, and which, as a precious 
relic, was presented to Mrs. Walton by General Jackson 
while he was President. 

Octavia Walton was born at Bellevue, near Augusta, Geor- 
gia, but her parents, moving soon after to Florida, her first 
memories are of the sunshine and flowers of Pensacola, in her 
own vivid words ' ' of the orange and live-oak trees, shading 
the broad veranda ; of the fragrant acacia, oleander, and Cape 
jasmine trees, which filled the parterre sloping down to the 
sea beach ; of merry races with my brother along the white 
sands, while the creamy waves broke over my feet and the 
delicious breeze from the gulf played in my hair, and of the 
pet mocking-birds in the giant old oak by my window, whose 
songs called me each morning from dreamland." 

I quote now from my authoress. Pensacola, situated on a 
noble bay, was the rendezvous of the United States vessels of 
the Gulf Station. It was a gala time when they returned 
from their cruises ; balls and parties at the governor's 
house ; splendid entertainments on board the ships ; moon- 
light excursions upon the bay, and pic-nics in the magnolia 
groves. The well-educated and chivalric officers were a large 
element in the society to which our author was thus early 
accustomed ; and while yet a child she had little to learn in 
the way of drawing-room ease and elegance. 

Amid such scenes her receptive nature seems to have 
absorbed that tropical exuberance of thought, feeling, lan- 
guage, and presence, which has made her name famous ; 
while at the same time, an early and close relation with 
nature, in one of her most tender and bounteous aspects, 
preserved intact amid all precocious tendencies, the yiaive 
simplicity of the child, which is to this day her crowning 
grace. 

Before the age of twelve years, she could write and con- 
verse in three languages with facility. So unusual was her 
talent as a linguist, that it was the custom of her father to 
take her to his office to translate from the French or Spanish 
the most important letters connected with affairs of state. 
There, perched upon a high stool, (she was too tiny in stat- 
ure to be made available otherwise), she would interpret with 



400 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the greatest ease and correctness, the tenor and spirit of for- 
eign despatches, proving herself thus early, quite worthy of 
her illustrious descent. 

During her father's administration as Governor of Florida, 
he located the seat of government, and, at the request of his 
little daughter Octavia, called it by the Indian name of 
" Tallahassee." Its signification, " beautiful land," fell 
musically upon the ear of the imaginative child ; she was 
greatly interested, too, in the old Seminole King Mamashla, 
who, in the days of his power, struck his tent-pole in that 
ground, made it his resting-place, and called it first by this 
sweet name. The chief grew fond of her, and she was 
known in his tribe as " the White Dove of Peace." 

Octavia was never placed within the walls of a schoolroom. 
Her mother and grandmother, both women of intellect and 
cultivation, vied with each other in developing her earlier 
mental life, and private tutors were provided to meet the 
needs of her advance. 

When she first was presented to General I^afayette, a long 
and interesting interview ensued ; the young Octavia, seated 
upon the knee of the old hero, holding him spellbound with 
her piquant and fluent use of his native tongue. He then 
folded her to his heart, and blessed her fervently, remarking 
to one of the committee, as she left the room, a ' ' truly won- 
derful child, she has been conversing all this while, with in- 
tellect and tact, in the purest French. I predict for her a 
brilliant career." Oracular words, which the record of years 
have more than confirmed. But Octavia Walton did not sit 
passively down to await the fulfillment of Lafayette's proph- 
ecy. One great secret of her life lies in her indefatigable 
industry. Only by close application has she taken the true 
gauge of herself ; brought into view every resource ; into 
play every faculty ; only thus has she become acquainted 
with classical and scientific studies, made herself mistress of 
many languages, a proficient in music, an eloquent conver- 
sationalist, and a ready writer ; and by a no less fine and 
careful culture, has she been able in every phase of her life 
to evolve only light and warmth from her large human 
heart ; to bring to the surface the best qualities of all who 



Letters 401 

come within her influence ; to charm away distraction, and 
to preserve, apart from her world woman aspect a child na- 
ture as pure and undimmed as a pearl in the sea. 

. . . In 1836 she married Dr. Henry Le Vert of 
Mobile, a man noted equally for his professional skill and 
high moral worth. His father was a native of France, and 
came to America with lyafayette. . . . Frederica Bremer 
says of her : 

"It is so strange that that little worldly lad}', whom I 
have heard spoken of as a belle, and as a most splendid orna- 
ment of society, wherever she went, has yet become almost 
as dear to me as a young sister. But she has become so 
from being so excellent, because she has suffered much, and 
because, under a worldly exterior, there is an unusually sound 
and pure intellect, and a heart full of affection, which can 
cast aside all the vanities of the world for the power of grati- 
fying those whom she loves. This fair daughter of Florida, 
is surrounded by a circle of relatives who seem to regard her 
as the apple of their eye, ' ' etc. 

What I have hastily written and more hastily selected, 
may serve to give you some faint idea of this most charming 
lady. It is a good thing to have a sensible, well-educated 
sweet woman for one's friend, and I thank God, who has 
vouchsafed to me one or two such in the course of my 
pilgrimage. 

I enclose a sketch of my friend Ransom, of whom I have 
written and spoken to you. I fear I weary you with long 
letters. I shall return to Fort Gaines to-morrow or next 
day. I am not very well. That terrible diarrhoea hangs 
on and will not give me rest. I shall never recover from 
that disease, which will only be temporarily palliated or re- 
lieved, and I shall pray to God to let me die at home. 

Headquarters District oe South AIvAbama, 
Fort Gaines, Ala., May 26, 1865. 

You had received my recountal of our narrow escape from 
perishing at sea. The varied experience of the past few 
years has showed me the uncertainty of human life. ' ' We 



402 Thomas Kilby Smith 

are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is 
rounded with a sleep." I often wish you were with me 
here, that you might have leisure for reflection, and oppor- 
tunity to study the wonders of the deep, the great sea, fitting 
emblem of eternity. To watch with me the changes on its 
surface, now dimpled and glittering in the sunlight, then 
glassy as a mirror, reflecting the bright moon, or by starlight 
lambent with phosphorescent glare ; and again maddened by 
the wind, tossing and roaring and foaming with rage. To 
see the sun rise from the ocean in the morning and set be- 
neath its waters at eve ; to see the sweet sight of " sunset 
sailing ships, ' ' to wander by the shore and watch the graceful 
seabirds dip their wings. Nothing that poet has written or 
traveller described, can give to the mind an idea of the heart 
emotions awakened by the ocean, whether in repose or agi- 
tated by storm. I am never wear}^ of it, or the southern 
gales that sweep its bosom. You remember old Governor 
Duval's description of the breeze at Pensacola, How its in- 
fluence made one dream of " bathing in a sea of peacock's 
plumes." Here you can realize how graphic was his de- 
scription. The weather is perfectly delicious ; you never 
saw so blue a sky. In the early morning it is hot, but about 
ten o'clock the sea breeze springs up and sitting in the shade 
you have nothing in the way of atmosphere to desire. My 
house is favorably situated close to the beach, or rather on 
the beach, close to the water's edge, so close that the spray 
of the waves sometimes falls in light mist on my brow, as I 
sit on the long and wide piazza, facing due east. Here I 
linger far into the night, sometimes till the early morning, 
watching the stars and chewing the cud of sweet and bitter 
fancy, with nothing to break the silence but the tread of the 
sentry and the splash of the waves, drinking in deep draughts 
of night air that give no cold. They tell me the coming 
months are hot, and the mosquitoes troublesome. I know not 
how that may be ; the present is the perfection of climate, 
and I wish you could enjoy it with me. My health is im- 
proving. I am taking iron and quinine, and within a few 
days my disease seems brought under subjection. 



Letters 



403 



It is strange that as I have been writing and endeavoring 
to moralize upon the uncertainty of human life and the futility 
of human plans, another and terrible lesson has been read 
to me. Yesterday, while writing to Walter my house was 
shaken by a tremendous explosion, that I supposed to be a 
clap of thunder, though the sky was clear. I called to "J. 
L. " ' to know if any of the guns at the fort had been dis- 
charged ; he said no, but thought one of the " men-of-war " 
in the oflSng had fired a gun. I thought it rather strange, 
it being about two o'clock in the afternoon. At night, I dis- 
covered a bright light in the north and feared for a while 
that a steamboat was on fire ; but just at this moment the 
mystery has been solved by the intelligence brought me that 
the magazines at Mobile have been blown up, half the city 
destroyed, thousands of lives lost, and a scene of misery and 
destruction terrible to imagine. I shall cease writing now 
and close my letter by giving you full particulars, as they 
will be brought me by the next boat. Truly in life we are 
in death. Thousands of soldiers and refugees, women and 
children, have been hurried to eternity without warning, and 
many hundreds of mangled and wounded are craving death 
to relieve them from misery. 

Saturday, Maj- 27th. 

Enclosed herewith I hand you the only copy of Mobile 
paper I can procure ; the details therein will be sufiicient 
without further comment from me. To-day is deliciously 
cool, too cool for comfort without woollen clothes. My little 
boat has just arrived, bringing me cargo of chickens, green 
peas, string beans, cucumbers, blackberries, sweet potatoes, 
and peanuts, with beautiful bouquets sent to me from Mount 
lyouis Island, a blossom or two you will find pressed. 

I cannot say what my future will be, a resignation would 

not be accepted, inasmuch as I have a full major-general's 

command, and I am in uncertainty as to the day or hour 

when I may be mustered out, or ordered hence to another 

' His orderly. 



404 Tho7nas Kilby Smith 

field. It is only left to me to be patient to the bitter end. 
There is a growing disposition through many parts of the 
country to pay more honor to the base rebels who have been 
conquered in their efforts to overthrow the best government 
in the world than to the brave defenders of their flag. It 
will not be long before the United States uniforms will cease 
to be a badge of honor. How base the treatment of Sher- 
man, how nobly he has emerged from the fiery furnace. I 
dare not trust myself in speculation upon passing events, or 
anticipation of the future. 

I rejoice to note by the price current that most of the 
staples of life are largely reduced in value ; corn, oats, flour, 
etc. You will now be able to make your dollar purchase 
pretty nearly a dollar's worth, and thus your income be 
virtually increased. 

I am not much in the habit of telling dreams, and there is 
no Joseph to interpret ; but three that have been lately 
dreamed, are so peculiar in connection with passing events, 
that, without giving them in full detail, I will let you have 
the outline. The first dream I dreamed myself about the 
time of the assassination of the President, and it was to this 
effect ; that General Canby sent for me to be the bearer of 
despatches to President Lincoln, and that I went to heaven 
to deliver the despatches. You will naturally ask how 
heaven appeared to me in my dream. I can only give you 
a vague idea of my impressions. The scene was a spacious 
apartment something like the East Room of the White 
House ; but vast with shadowy pillars and recesses and one 
end opening into space skyward, and by fleecy clouds made 
dim and obscure, just visible, with a shining radiance far 
away in the perspective, farther away than the sun or stars 
appear to us. I have no remembrance of my interview, but 
a clear recollection of my sensations that were those of per- 
fect happiness, such as I have never had waking or dreaming. 
I would not tell this dream to anyone, till some weeks after- 
wards the Provost Marshal of my staff told me of a strange 
dream in which he had awakened the night before, and that 
had made a serious impression on his mind. The scene of 



Letters 405 

his vision was laid at Carrollton, near New Orleans. I was 
standing surrounded by my staff, Jemmy Sherer and Joe, 
when a man approached and asked me to retire to the back 
yard on plea of private and important business. I walked 
out with him and a moment after a rebel ofl&cer followed us, 
with his hand upon a pistol, partially concealed in his breast. 
Mrs. Stone, the wife of my Inspector-General, called the 
attention of the dreamer to this fact, with a solemn warning 
that I was about to be assassinated. He at once sprang to 
the door for the guard, and perceiving an oflScer in command 
of an escort approaching, called halt, that from him he might 
procure the guard, but as he neared, discovered he was es- 
corting a long funeral procession of mourners clad in white, 
in the centre of which was a hearse with towering white 
plumes. A colloquy and quarrel ensued, and pending the 
denouement he awoke. He told his dream to me, and on 
the instant, my own being recalled to mind, I told him 
mine, but neither of us mentioned the matter to others, 
lyastly, the Adjutant, Captain Wetmore, had his dream. 
The march and the battle, and all the vicissitudes of the 
campaign, in the rapid kaleidoscope of thought, had passed 
through his brain, when at last Jeff Davis appeared, a cap- 
tured prisoner, then he was indicted, tried, and convicted, 
all in due course, and finally the sentence, that he be ban- 
ished to ' ' Australia ' ' for twenty years, provided the consent 
of the British government could be obtained thereto. 

These dreams were all vivid and interesting in detail, the 
last the most sensible of the three, and certainly as easy of 
interpretation as those of the butler and the baker of the 
King of Egypt. Yet they only serve to remind us of the 
words of him, who wrote as never man wrote, who knew the 
human heart, and springs to human action, and the world, 
and all its contents, better than anyone on earth, 

"All Spirits, 
And are melted into air, into thin air ; 
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself. 
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 



4o6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a rack behind : We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep. . . ." 

My next letter will be dated from New Orleans, events 
transpiring, foreshadow my early departure from my head- 
quarters at Dauphine Island, to which I have become a good 
deal attached. I have had some lonely hours on its shores, 
but the waves have made sweet music in my ears. 

I have some fresh accounts of the horrid accident at Mobile ; 
language fails to do justice to the terrors of the scene. The 
professional sensation writers will fill the columns of the 
daily press with details, and I will not attempt to harrow up 
your soul with my tame pen. 



MOBil,E, Ala., June 7, 1865. 
My dear Wife : 



My time is much occupied. Judge Chase has just left us, 
and to-day we have the famous Phil. Sheridan. I have been 
going about with him all day, and entertained General Price 
of his suite at dinner. The weather is intensely hot, but 
my health is at least as good as usual, that is not saying 
much for me. 



Headquarters District of Mobile, 
June 15, 1865. 

My dear Mother : 

A very handsome position and one of the most powerful, 
in the event of foreign war, that is probable, has been ten- 
dered me, that of Provost Marshal General, for the whole 
Western Department, including Texas and New Mexico, 
has been offered and urged upon me, but General Canby 
has been anxious to place me in command of this, the most 
important district of the South. I have j-ielded to him, for 
two considerations, first, I shall be nearer my family, some 
members of whom I shall be able to see in the autumn, if 



Letters 407 

my life is spared, and secondly, because I have some political 
aspirations that may be rendered tangible, perhaps better 
from this point than any other, this, of course, depends upon 
the future aspect of our foreign relations. These two con- 
siderations are selfish ; after these I feel I can, perhaps, do 
my duty to my Government as well, or perhaps better, in my 
present position than the other, which would involve great 
labor. 



He;adquarters Post and District of Mobii,e, 
Mobile, June 30, 1865. 
My de;ar Wipe : 

I send packages of papers from day to day, from which 
you may have some account of my goings on. 

I am living at a tremendous rate, and between my business 
and my pleasures, or what passes for pleasure, and is part of 
my business, have but little leisure to write ; though I do 
far more than my share, considering that there are so many 
at home. My house is full to overflowing with guests. I 
am now entertaining three brigadier-generals and their sev- 
eral staffs. A night or two ago I gave entertainment to the 
whole of Mobile, and you may be sure I gave them a good 
time. There is some account of the occasion in the papers 
of the day, and I enclose a slip. 



Headquarters Post and District of Mobii,e, 
Mobile, Ala., Aug. i. 1865. 

I know it will make you sad, but for the sake of their ex- 
ceeding beauty, I must transcribe some original lines I run 
my eye over to-day and saved for you : 

GONE HOME. 

No sickness there, nor any care, nor grief 

Nor any night ; 
There, we shall clasp our long lost friends again, 

With new delight. 



4o8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

No cold neglect, ingratitude, nor guile, 

Will there distress ; 
No heavy hours, no lonely days and nights, 

No weariness ; 
No longing for sweet peace, that never comes ; 

No scalding tears. 
That, falling, wash away the life and strength 

More than do years ; 
Oh, home! sweet home ! when shall these weary feet 

Press thy dear soil ? 
"When shall I rest from all my pain and grief, 

My care and toil ? 



Headquarters Post of Mobii,e, 
Mobile, Ala., Aug. ii, 1S65. 



The chronic complaint with which my system is poisoned, 
will never be eradicated ; the diarrhoea at times is beyond any- 
thing you ever saw or dreamed of, and from day to day I look 
at myself in the glass with wonder and amazement that I am 
still alive. Change, radical change of air, may possibly alle- 
viate ; it is worth the trial. Under the most favorable circum- 
stances, I should die in two weeks in Ohio, and will not come 
back in warm weather to make the experiment. 



The weather here is very warm. We have no epidemic 
as yet, but I hear of yellow fever in New Orleans. I will do 
what I can to keep it out ; as long as the nights remain warm 
there is no danger. A little strange, is it not, that in a 
Southern climate warm weather is a guarantee against 
infection ? 



Mobile, Ala., Sept. 5, 1865. 

I write in great haste, and expect to be home in the course 
of two or three weeks. 



Letters 409 

New Orleans, Sept. 12, 1865. 

I shall be detained here some days on business. As soon 
as I can get away, I shall come home, and hope my coming 
will not be deferred long after the reception of this letter. I 
cannot now write you at length ; my plans are not matured. 
My health is much the same, no worse. 

Union Ci,ub, New York, Feb. 24, 1866. 
My dear Daughter : 

New York has been quite agog the last few days with 
gayeties growing out of Washington's anniversary and the 
advent of General Grant. The latter we entertained at our 
club the day before yesterday with one of the most magnifi- 
cent dinners ever given in America, at which there were 
present one hundred and fifty guests. The banqueting hall 
was magnificently draped with flags, the tables covered with 
exquisite exotics, glittering plate, and the most sumptuous 
viands and richest wines were there in profusion ; added to 
all this, two large bands discoursed most eloquent music, 
and the feast was enlivened with speeches, wit, song, and 
sentiment. To all present, it will have been an event long 
to be remembered. 

Yesterday was a lovely, balmy, springlike day, and I was 
taken a long drive by Mr. Jerome, behind a fleet and splendid 
team of four horses, said to be the most stylish " four-in- 
hand ' ' in New York. I quite longed to have you by my 
side, for you would have enjoyed it to the utmost. I hope, 
however, and at no very future day, to have the pleasure of 
driving you through the park myself, and also riding with 
you there on horseback. 



Washington, April 11, 1866. 
My dear Wife : 

I have not yet been introduced to the President, because 
I have waited for the proper person to perform the office. 



4IO Thomas Kilby Smith 

The matter of my brevet is all right. My name, with a 
number of others, was sent to the Senate on the 26th of 
February, and since then, there has been no executive session 
and no opportunity to make confirmations. I am assured 
there will be no trouble about it, but before I leave I shall 
see the Military Committee. I do not think it worth while 
to seek a private interview with General Grant ; if he wants 
to see me, he will send for me, and being out of service I 
have no business with him. It seems to be generally under- 
stood that he possesses no real power with the President, or 
that if he does, he will not exercise it in civil appointments. 
As to the new Army Bill, the Congress have determined 
to control the appointments from civil life themselves — 
to permit no interference from the President or from Gen- 
eral Grant. It is also said that the President is deter- 
mined, in his civil appointments, to recognize the services 
of distinguished oflScers. Gen. A. J. Smith told me j^ester- 
day, what has been reiterated to me very many times, that 
my record was one of the most distinguished on the list. 
How it will end, I cannot tell. 



Among the Granite Hii,i,s oe New Hampshire, 
Near Dartmouth Coli^ege, Hanover, 
Thursday, July 19, 1866. 

I wrote mother from Boston last Sunday ; at the time of 
writing I was interrupted by the entrance of Judge Bigelow 
and Mr. Miller, who paid me a call. In the evening I left 
our party, that had been invited to a reception at the house 
of Mr. Lincoln, the Mayor of Boston, and having been pro- 
vided with a carriage and pair of fast horses, I drove my 
friend, Wash. McIyCan (in Boston, to superintend his son, 
who enters Harvard) out to Quincy. 

On Thursday morning early, after most sumptuous and 
princely entertainment by the citizens of Boston, we left for 
Portsmouth, passing through L,ynn, Salem, Newbur)^port, 
Ipswich, etc., and arriving at Portsmouth were greeted by 
the mayor and civil authorities, and taken charge of by 



Letters 411 

Admiral Bailey, who entertained us at the Navy Yard. 
Here we had a reception, and more pretty girls than I ever 
saw together in my life came to see us. We stayed a day 
and night at Portsmouth, then in a special car, most luxuri- 
ously fitted up, came forward through Manchester and other 
small villages to Concord, where the Chief-Justice, Chase, 
joined us. We were breakfasted by Mr. Stearns, the Super- 
intendent of the road, who has taken charge of our travelling 
facilities from Boston and who had invited to meet us the Gov- 
ernor of the State, the Mayors of Portsmouth and Concord, 
and other dignitaries, who escorted the distinguished party 
to Hanover. Here we scattered a little, to accept the hospi- 
tality of divers people. General Sherman is at Dr. Crosby's, 
Judge Chase at Senator Patterson's and myself here at 
Colonel Berdan's, who, with his lovely and accomplished 
wife, possess an old country seat some three miles from 
Hanover, where we are being most hospitably entertained. 
The lady's uncle was, in '61, our Minister to Portugal, and 
for three years she was sojourning with him at Lisbon, or 
Paris, or travelling in England or France. Of course, we 
knew many friends and soon were directly e7i rapport. She 
is very beautiful and young. Judge Sherman and wife staid 
with their son in Hanover. The young man graduated 
yesterday and delivered an address to-day. To-night, after 
the college exercises are over, we shall proceed to Burling- 
ton, Vermont, and from thence to Montreal, Quebec, back 
to Montreal, then to Niagara Falls, where I shall abandon 
and from thence make my way home, as I do not care to go 
West. I have met in my tour many old friends, some offi- 
cers who served vnth me, and all the people seem to be 
acquainted with my military career, though the ... re- 
porters will insist upon calling me " Kirby." 

I am now upon the ground, made sacred to his admirers, 
as the birth-place and the haunt of the early youth of Daniel 
Webster. In the house where I am at present writing he 
has often slept. We yesterday ate from his dining-table, 
have passed the lake where he fished, the coverts where he 
shot, have wandered through his schoolhouses and over the 
ground where he played, the whole atmosphere is fragrant 



412 Thomas Kilby Smith 

with his memories. Here, too, Salmon P. Chase was born 
and educated, that is to say, he was born some eighteen 
miles from this point, and is one of the alumni of Dartmouth. 
The air here among the hills and not far from the foot of the 
White Mountains, is delightfully pure. I feel much benefit 
from its effects, and though my disease is still upon me, my 
spirits are lighter. I am writing in the early morning before 
the family are up, the only opportunity I have. 



Quebec, Canada, July 22, 1866. 

I wrote you last from Hanover, in New Hampshire, and 
during the commencement of Dartmouth College. I met 
thereat many of the savans of New England, the alumni of 
the college and their friends. The papers of the day have 
doubtless given you accounts of the manner in which Gen- 
eral Sherman was received by them and of his speech to the 
students and at the alumni dinner. I came in for my full 
share of the honors and the college paid me the distinguished 
and delicate compliment of conferring upon me the degree 
of Master of Arts, to which they were pleased to say I was 
entitled by virtue of my distinguished services to the country. 
I was most kindly and hospitably entertained by the peo- 
ple. . . . From Hanover we passed rapidly through 
the State ot Vermont, through the gorges of the Green 
Mountains, to Montpelier and to Burlington. We were 
escorted to Rouse Point on Lake Champlain, by the Gover- 
nor of the State, from thence we crossed the lake, stopping 
a brief season at Plattsburg and directly found ourselves 
upon the Canada border. Arriving at Montreal in the night, 
we were received by a deputation of American citizens, and 
escorted to the St. Lawrence Hotel. The next day we re- 
ceived calls from the citizens and the British officers, rode 
to the heights to view the city, went to partake of hospi- 
tality at the house of one or two of the most prominent citi- 
zens. Witnessed a review of the British regulars stationed 
at Montreal, who paid the General the distinguished honor 
of a military salute, the first instance I know of in which the 



Letters 413 

same has been done to an American General. We left 
Montreal by steamer last evening and having a delightful 
sail down the River Saint I^awrence, arrived here this Sun- 
day morning. I have just parted from the officers of the 
" Fusileers," stationed here, who came to invite the General 
and myself to a mess dinner at eight o'clock to-night. These 
mess dinners among the English officers are grand affairs, 
and I only regret that my health is so wretched as to pre- 
clude any enjoyment save what a looker-on at a feast may 
gather. I will not pretend to do the part of a gazetteer, and 
attempt the description of places or scener>\ I have been 
very much charmed with the mountains of New Hampshire 
and Vermont, the beautiful I^ake Champlain, and find a vast 
deal that is interesting in Montreal and Quebec ; all that I 
have seen of the St. I^awrence River serves to remind 
me of the Mississippi ; the same flat shore, the same coun- 
try stretching back. We have not done Quebec yet ; the 
ladies went to church while I staid home to write, but to- 
morrow shall go over the fortifications that to the eye 
seem impregnable. We shall stay :iere a day, then return 
to Montreal for two days, that will be devoted to public re- 
ceptions and entertainments already in prepartion for us by 
the military and the clubs. From Montreal we shall go to 
Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls, where I shall feel com- 
pelled to abandon the party, for the state of my health de- 
mands repose. I cannot control my bowels. I have sent 
you some newspapers that will give an account of a march 
almost as remarkable as that other march to the sea. New 
England, compelled to recognize the grandeur and magnifi- 
cence of the greatest military chieftain of the age, opened 
her arms wide to receive him, and though tardy in her 
homage, has now, with profound reverence, paid it in full. 
It was a beautiful and refreshing sight to me to behold the 
East, effete and tottering with age and sin, kneeling to pay 
tribute to the representative man of the young and glowing 
West ; to see her orators and statesmen, her governors and 
rulers, and, above all, her wise men, whom she most delights 
to honor within her own borders, pressing forward to touch 
the hem of the garment of him who had delivered their land 



414 Thomas Kilby Smith 

from a great evil, and who now marched through with the 
firm and even tread that indicates superiority in intellect, 
in statesmanship, in patriotism. 



Washington, January 17, 1867. 
My dear Son Wai^ter : - 



Politics run very high. The radicals, in my opinion, 
will impeach the President, but I do not think they will 
attempt to depose him. The consequence of this movement 
will be depression in trade and commerce, and a disturbance 
of the finances. Gold will rise and fluctuate. I do not 
think there will be an outbreak or appeal to arms, but I do 
think we are in a condition of war and revolution. My 
hope is that there will be a division in the radical party that 
will lead to its breaking up. That party will not admit the 
Southern States to representation, nor are they willing to 
define their relations to the government, or legislate to make 
them either States or territories, but they will hold them in 
abeyance till after the next Presidential election. The 
Senate will pass a bill to-day or to-morrow declaring the 
acts of the President in making removals from ofiice illegal 
and this will have the effect of displacing all his appoint- 
ments. Those who have gone abroad will have to return. 
All postmasters, marshals, revenue officers and custom-house 
ofl&cers, everything of the kind that has been given by the 
President, will have to abdicate and be set aside. The 
Senate, at all hazards, is determined to guard its prerogative. 

You had better read carefully the proceedings of Congress, 
and in this way keep yourself advised of the history of your 
country, now passing through a strange and fearful epoch 
that will be remarkable for events of great subsequent in- 
fluence in which you will probably have to bear a part. I 
need not counsel you to strain every nerve, now that you 
have an opportunity, to perfect yourself in all the studies 
that, now mastered, will fit you for a life of future usefulness 
to your country, your friends and yourself. I want you to 
harden your body by exercise in the open air and improve 



Letters ^ 415 

your mind by reading and research. You seem to have a 
difficulty in lengthening your letters, so I will thank you, in 
addition to your ordinary letter, to send me the daily trans- 
lation of your CcBsar. 

AT SEA, ON BOARD Ship " Rising Star," 

OFF Point Maysi, Cuba, July 25, 1867. 
My dear Wife : 

There is just a possibility of our meeting a return ship and 
exchanging mails to-day, so I prepare a little line that you 
may possibly hear that up to this time we have had prosper- 
ous voyage with favoring gales, the sea, as a general thing, 
smooth with light squalls of rain. The ship is commanded 
by Captain I^eebury, whom mother will remember as an old 
shipraate and friend of Walter's. He has been very polite, 
and I have had the run of his cabin. He speaks most 
affectionately of Walter. Thus far, I think the voyage has 
been of benefit to my health, my appetite has been good, 
and I have not suffered in the least from seasickness, al- 
though at times the ship was pitched and tossed a good deal. 
We have eight hundred and sixty-one passengers, including 
some five hundred soldiers bound for California. The ship 
is well found and healthy. We have run about two hundred 
and fifty miles a day, have accomplished upwards of twelve 
hundred miles, and expect to make port next Sunday, the 
whole distance being about nineteen hundred and fifty miles. 
We are just now running through the islands and about 
entering the Caribbean Sea. The weather is now clear and 
very hot, especially at night ; the motion of the ship gives a 
fine breeze in the day. Of course, I find a number of ac- 
quaintances on board. There are some ladies, but they are 
all seasick. Nothing of moment has transpired on the 
voyage. 

Panama, July 28, 1867. 

Our ship reached port at Aspinwall after a prosperous 
voyage with favoring gales, at 9.30 this (Sunday) morning. 



41 6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

I wrote while on shipboard, in the hope of meeting a return 
steamer, but was disappointed, so you will have two letters 
by this mail. The strangest sights at once meet my eye on 
landing, the most ludicrous of which were the half-naked 
native soldiers on guard, half Indian and half deteriorated 
Spaniard ; I think with an hundred Western boys I could 
whip two thousand of them. Then the city, a collection of 
adobe houses, every one of which was occupied for the sale 
of everything tmder the sun to eat, to drink, to smoke, and 
to wear, while women sat at the outer doors, before little 
tables, covered with silver dollars and halves and quarters 
to exchange for U. S. currency. The exceptions to their 
buildings were the stone edifices for warehouses and other 
purposes, erected by the Panama Railroad Company. The 
street was infested with peddlers of fruit and wine and lemon- 
ade, cakes, pies, and ale, pedlars of all ages, both sexes and 
every hue, all of them, men, women and children, very 
nearly naked, some of the children quite so. They offered 
every description of tropical fruits, bananas, plantains, 
cocoanuts, limes, the celebrated Avocado pear, with queer- 
looking cakes and loaves of bread and bits of fresh pork 
cooked and served on plantain leaves. The streets were 
shaded with the cocoa-bearing palm, now in full bearing, 
and for the first time I had an opportunity of seeing this 
wonderful tree with its long feathery branches eight feet and 
upwards, that are in fact leaves, while far to the top were 
growing the nuts in huge clusters. The weather was hot 
and rainy, and I was glad to avail myself of the hospitality 
tendered by Mr. Parker, the Superintendent of the railroad, 
who was prepared to receive me, and treated me with pro- 
found politeness as indeed did all the ofi&cials at Aspinwall. 
At eleven o'clock I was ushered to a special train, and 
whirled off on my way to Panama, over one of the most 
romantic roads in the world, a road connecting the two great 
oceans that it is well worth while to traverse either to see. 
For a while it winds along the borders of the Chagres River, 
through lagoons and the most dense vegetation you can con- 
ceive of ; then threading intricate passes and circling round 
the mountain bases, ascends to the summit level, two hun- 



Letters 4 1 7 

dred and sixty-three feet above the ocean line, then descend- 
ing sweeps to the shore of the Pacific on the border of one 
of the most beautiful bays that ever gave harbor. At an- 
other time I will give you a more particular description of 
this wonderful efifort of ingenuity and engineering skill. I 
reached Panama at 3.30 p.m., and found my Secretary, Gen- 
eral Hough, in waiting for me. 

Monday, 29. — Rose at seven, bathed and wrote, break- 
fasted, at eleven o'clock ; . . . assumed duties of Con- 
sulate, and called in state, full regimentals, sword and sash, 
upon General Vincent Olarte, the President of the State of 
Panama, who received me most courteously and acknowl- 
edged my authority ; as he speaks Spanish and no other lan- 
guage, and I speak English and no Spanish, the interview, 
except so far as formalities were concerned, was not specially 
interesting ; all that was necessary to be communicated, how- 
ever, were transmitted through an interpreter, his Secretary, 
a gentleman of the half blood, I imagine, his mother having 
been a first class negress. I was sadly put to it for uniform, 
my tailor having omitted to send me the coat till the very last 
moment, when the steamer left the dock, and when nobody 
could be found to receipt for it. I managed to make a shift, 
however, with the coat of my Secretary, that I borrowed for 
the occasion, that, fortunately, I was able to buckle round me. 
I found the President ready to receive me in full state at the 
Executive Mansion, a very old, but very substantial building, 
erected as are most of the first-class houses here, on the hollow 
square and courtyard in the centre principle, like Mr. Kirby's, 
at Cincinnati. He is a handsome, and I should think accom- 
plished man, and has won distinction as a soldier. He is 
bitterly opposed to Mosquero, who is now a prisoner at 
Bogota, and awaits the coming of what he calls the Consti- 
tutional President, who is now abroad, but expected here in 
the course of two or three weeks. The most noticeable things 
about the man, that I could discover, physically, were his 
beautiful long and silky beard, black as jet and soft as down, 
and his hands and finger nails, the former small, white and 
delicate, like a young girl's, the latter cultivated to a pro- 



41 8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

digious length. I am constantly reminded of the stories my 
father used to tell me of the manners and customs of the 
people here and I remember this matter of the nails was 
a peculiarity he mentioned as among the wealthy and a 
certain class who in that way advertised that they never per- 
formed any manual labor. Another thing (to digress, as he 
used to say) was the stories he told about their racing horses 
and the gait and style of their going with the manner of bit 
and harness and seat of rider, all of which is to the letter 
true to-day. He was a wonderful man and the older I grow 
and the more I see, the better able I am to appreciate him. 
Well, I got through with the President, and having eased 
myself of my own harness, must attempt some vague de- 
scription of this old, old town as it strikes me and nothing I 
ever read or heard of can appear more antiquated, not primi- 
tive, but antiquated, carrying your mind back to the cen- 
turies that are gone. The site for a city is peculiarly well 
located, in a military and civil sense, and I doubt not a city 
has been here far beyond the memory of the traditions of 
man. As you approach it from the railroad depot, you are 
unfavorably impressed, the long covered way that composes 
the depot occupying nearly all the available ground and shut- 
ting out all view ; the passengers are shoved out from the cars 
at one end and hurried through to a little tugboat that lies at 
the wharf at the other end, like wheat through a mill hopper. 
Hustled and crowded and jostled and jammed, hot and op- 
pressed, with children, sick women and small parcels, their 
visions of Panama are like horrid dreams of the night, and it 
lingers in their memory as the nightmare of an evil con- 
science : hence Panama fever. Escaping from these damned 
spirits, he who proposes to sojourn here, after taking seat in 
a New York omnibus, propelled by force of mule meat which 
gets terribly thrashed in transitu, finds himself meandering 
up steep and crooked ways, till inside a wall erected cen- 
turies ago, he realizes he is in Panama. All sorts of queer- 
looking tenements greet his sight, roofed with corrugated 
tiles, that is to say, a succession of earthen cylinders, the 
convex side up, each about two feet in length, and laid 
parallel end to end, these never decay, and having been ex 



Letters 419 

posed to the weather for years have assumed all sorts of 
colors. The most of these tenements are used both for 
mercantile and social purposes, the store or shop being below 
the family, or place of pleasure, where billiards, cards, music, 
or what not above ; many of the signs were in English, a 
few in French, the bulk in the Spanish language. Mingled 
with these tenements are the market stalls, where again I 
had confirmation of my father's stories, that I used to set 
down as traveller's tales. The meat is cut from the bone in 
long strings, and sold by the yard, and these strings hung 
from the crossbars in strange festoons, while the bare bones 
grin at their base, ofiisr no alluring or appetizing appearance. 
Passing through narrow but well paved streets, at last you 
emerge into the grand plaza, a hollow square about double 
the size of our garden, surrounded on the one side by stores, 
over one of which is my consulate, on the other by the State 
House of Panama, on the third by one of the strangest, 
most weird looking citadels, and on the fourth by the 
' ' Grand Hotel, ' ' that commands a view of the bay from the 
upper windows of the front rooms, one of which I occupy. 
This bay is small, securely landlocked, and very, very beauti- 
ful in its aspect at all times. Here and there between the 
islands that loom up with lofty peaks, covered with most 
vivid green, you catch a glimpse of the wide Pacific rolling 
eternally, and as I see it at this moment, serene, calm, as if 
no storm ever ruffled its bosom. Passing out from the Plaza 
oceanward, you come again to the city walls and the mole. 
This is a charming promenade, and when the tide is up and 
the waves dash on the rocks beneath, while the fresh sea 
breeze comes in, exhilarating. The cathedral deserves more 
than passing notice. I have not yet been inside of it ; the 
outside seems to have been formed out of a sort of concrete. 
So far as the tower is concerned (I have since by peeping 
round the corner discovered there are two of them) that 
looms up lofty and white, the glare is relieved by all sorts of 
wild weeds and flowers that have rooted themselves among 
the battlements ; on the top of the tower is a belfry contain- 
ing certain cracked bells, that they employ a multitude of 
boys to beat and bruise and hammer with all sorts of stones 



420 Thomas Kilby S7nith 

and other weapons, till they howl and jingle with a horrid 
agony, piercing the ears of men and making them think that 
for a time hell has broken loose. A large number are deaf 
in consequence, but the most part of the population have 
gone crazy from the effects of the dreadful tintinnabulum. 
The more the bells are cracked, the louder they are made to 
bellow, and the more vigorously they are pounded ; and the 
population being cracked, the symphony is more complete. 
The main part of the building is composed of stone, green 
with the moss of ages, and with many a niche left here and 
there for a graven image to stand in. The whole concern 
looks like an exaggerated witch of Endor, turned into a 
church, and if Samuel or Saul, on whomever the man was 
that she appeared to, was to come again on earth and see 
this ecclesiastical architecture " he would lay all along on 
the ground," as he did when he called the witch up. It is 
the abode of many priests, all of whom have families. The 
number of the bells alluded to that suffer in these towers 
are ten, in fact, but those who do not know this have sup- 
posed them to be ten thousand. The people subsist princi- 
pally on water brought from a distance by boys in casks 
fitted to pack saddles on the backs of mules, and it is a 
beautiful and refreshing sight to see a small mule with two 
of these barrels strung on each side and a 5'outh, without 
any hat, or stockings, or shoes, or coat, or vest, or suspend- 
ers, or pantaloons, bearing in short nothing but a whip, 
perched on top. The water they bring is supposed to be 
wholesome. Some other people drink rain water, judging 
from the roofs. I have come to the solemn conclusion to 
drink none at all. Panama affords a fine field for the study 
of anatomy, the human frame, after the most approved style 
of the model artist, being presented in strong relief. The 
entire absence of covering, to the uninstructed eye, produces 
effects that are rather startling at first, but warm and brill- 
iant coloring soon relieves the shock. Perhaps the less said 
about the matter the better, but the populace of Panama are 
not celebrated for carrying out in all respects the law Moses 
laid down for sanitary purposes. 

I am told society is rather pleasant here than otherwise. 



Letters 42 1 

As yet I have seen but very few gentlemen and no ladies. 
Some of the Spanish women are represented as being beauti- 
ful, and all extravagantly fond of dancing. The daughters 
of the priests mingle freely in society ; one of them is said to 
be very beautiful. They go by their fathers' names. I have 
not heard of their sons as yet, though inasmuch as they have 
daughters, it is supposed to be possible for them to have sons. 
Before the close of a lengthy but rather dreary letter, I shall 
hope to be able to give you a larger experience that the 
sojourn of but a day makes me deficient in. 

Quite an exciting little whaling adventure occurred in this 
bay on the afternoon of 26th inst. , resulting in the capture 
of a large whale off Taboga, a beautiful island a few miles 
from the shore. It appears that an officer of the American 
whaling bark. Sea Ranger, which arrived here the day 
before, whilst on board the vessel at her anchorage, sighted 
a young whale or calf, and, knowing the mother or cow 
could not be far off, immediately sent a couple of boats in 
pursuit. The crew soon succeeded in harpooning the calf, 
which immediately afterwards joined the cow, and both 
started seawards, followed by the boats and bark. Off 
Taboga the old whale was captured, and turned out to be 
a fine one for this region. It measured sixty feet long, 
fifteen and a half feet across the flukes, with fins twenty- two 
feet in length, and produced thirty-seven barrels of oil. It 
is something very unusual for a large whale to be captured 
in this bay so near the shore. Lieutenant Livingstone, of 
man-of-war, Dakota, stationed at this point, witnessed the 
whole affair, and gave me an animated account of it. Cap- 
tain Spicer, in command, sent him ashore to offer courtesies, 
etc., and to place the ship's boats at my disposal. As one of 
them is a steam launch, I shall avail myself of his politeness, 
and from time to time explore the islands of the bay. 

A ship (this is Tuesday, the 30th, I am writing) has just 
arrived from Peru, and the hotel is filled with passengers. I 
forgot to tell you that a French ship came in yesterday, and 
brought six nuns, I think, in all, with three or four priests 
also. They are sisters of charity, or sisters of mercy, and 
you will be glad to know they are in the house, for when I 



422 Thomas Kilby Smith 

get the fever they will take care of me. . . . It is one of the 
South and Central American customs to have men chamber- 
maids, there are no women employed for any purpose about 
this large hotel ; men cooks, men waiters, men housekeepers 
and men chambermaids. With the exception of Mrs. Hough 
and the aforesaid nuns, I have not seen a female about the 
house, and I believe men do the laundry work. It is, in fact, 
throughout the tropics, as father used to say, ' ' a heaven for 
women, a purgatory for men, and a hell for jackasses. ' ' Those 
poor beasts, with the mules and ponies, are most scandalously 
treated. There is a wide field here for the efforts of Mr. Berg 
and those humanitarians who desire to relieve the sufferings 
of beasts. The creatures are unmercifully overladen. They 
put great packs upon them, more than they can well stagger 
under, and then a great oaf gets up on top of the pack. The 
answer to it all is, I suppose, that they have no business to 
be jackasses. There are strange birds, something between a 
crow and a buzzard, flying about quite tame, a species of vul- 
ture, that are encouraged and act, I suppose, the part of scav- 
engers. The hotel accommodations are about as good here 
as anywhere else, the prices high, a little higher than in New 
York. Three or four steamers have arrived since my advent, 
and the San Francisco ship is expected to-morrow. There 
is a population here of about ten thousand, six thousand of 
which claims pure Spanish origin, — doubtful. Thus I have 
given you in a hurried, desultory way my impressions of 
Panama as far as I have Rfot. 



United States Consui^ate, 

AT Panama, Aug. 9, 1867. 

My dear Mother : 

You ask how I am, and naturally want to know how I 
live. I think there is but little change in my feelings, save 
the languor, lassitude, engendered by a tropical climate. I 
take but little exercise, to do which, indeed, there is no 
temptation ; have more disposition to sleep during the day, 
for the rest it is about the same. There is yellow fever here 



Letters 423 

within the last two or three days. I have heard of cases of 
black vomit, but it is not epidemic. The malarial fever of 
the country obtains at all times, and is similar to what I 
suffered with in the South. The atmosphere is decidedly 
malarial. The temperature is very different from what you 
would suppose in a locality so near the Equator. The city 
is built upon a little promontory that juts out into the bay, 
and from three sides there is an opportunity for sea breeze 
that from one or the other quarter plays nearly the whole 
day long, consequently by keeping in the shade and chang- 
ing positions one can keep cool, and since my arrival I have 
felt it necessary to lay aside my linen garments and resume 
the woollens suitable for spring or fall in the States. The 
nights are invariably cool ; but this is so from the night 
winds; the bed on which I lie becomes heated to an intoler- 
able degree ; fortunately, I have two in my chamber, and I 
change from one to the other two or three times in the night. 
The danger here is from exposure to the sun, to drafts, and to 
rain. Everybody, of both sexes, and ages, and all colors 
carries umbrellas, and is very careful of currents of air. In 
a healthy condition, one perspires freely and continuously in 
copious streams ; if from any cause this perspiration is 
checked, fever must ensue. Were it not for the winds, the 
heat would be insufferable, yet it is of the last importance to 
guard yourself from the winds or their direct action, and to 
keep the pores open. Daily bathing all decent people re- 
gard as indispensable ; also they avoid the fruits of the 
country, bananas, pineapples, etc., excepting limes, that are 
used freely. I am living at a hotel, but in a day or two, as 
soon as I have purchased some furniture, shall remove to the 
Consulate, where I have four rooms, one of which will be 
for office purposes, one for a parlor, one for my secretary and 
his wife, and the fourth I shall use as my chamber. My 
predecessor in office, Dr. I^ittle, died in the room a few 
months since of yellow fever, and therefore I have had it 
well scrubbed and whitewashed. Furniture here is enor- 
mously^ dear, and it will cost me many hundreds of dollars 
to furnish the Consulate. For the present I shall buy only 
sufficient for the chamber, but even that at second or third 



424 Thomas Kilby Smith 

hand is oflfered me at three hundred and fifty dollars, only- 
enough for one room ; and without carpet, that indeed, would 
only be a nuisance here. What I say of furniture applies to 
everything else. All the means and appliances of living 
cost more here in gold and silver than in New York in 
paper. The food is bad, very bad ; the material is bad, 
the cooking worse. The bread is execrable, sour, made of 
damaged Chili flour. Butter is never put upon the table. 
Ice plenty enough, but costs fifteen cents a pound. I have 
not found a single palatable dish since I have been here. 
There is some society here, some intelligent men. I have 
seen very few of the women. There are the families of the 
French and English consuls, and other foreign consuls, 
some eight or ten altogether, the ofiicers of the man-of-war 
Dakota that lies off" in the bay, and the gentlemen connected 
with the steamship company and the railroad, and there are 
a number of respectable merchants, native and foreign. 
With society here, however, whatever may be its material, I 
imagine I shall have little to do. I shall be compelled to 
look in upon myself for society and occupation, which till 
now have been supplied from many a pleasant circle at divers 
places, by which it has been my happiness to be surrounded, 
— a conjuncture which must be felt to be understood. My 
way in this part of the journey of life must be dark and soli- 
tary. Whether substantial reward will follow the sacrifice 
remains to be proved. If it is accorded, in whatever shape 
it comes, so that it is revealed in the added prosperity and 
happiness of the home circle, I shall feel that no sacrifice of 
self will have been too great, and that I shall not have lived 
wholly in vain. Of course, it will be my ambition to illus- 
trate my office that has been sadly neglected, and events 
likely to transpire may give me an opportunity of doing this, 
while adding to my fame and the glory of my country. No 
one can foresee who may be the agents of the Most High in 
shaping the destinies of nations. I pray for wisdom with 
His grace, wisdom that is better worth than wealth or power 
or glory. 

The turkey buzzards are encouraged here to act as scaven- 



Letters 425 

gers, and hop about the streets and roost on the housetops as 
tame pigeons about our cities, and just now at this moment, 
suddenly and without noise, an ugly bird, long-legged, lean, 
mangy, foul, has lit upon the gable end of an adjoining 
house, and with one leg hid under his wing, is peering at 
me with a speculative eye, wondering when he will have the 
pleasure of disputing with the worms the right of way to my 
heart and bowels. If the latter give him as much trouble as 
they have me, he '11 wish he had n't found it. I turn from 
the contemplation of that vulture to the sad sea-wave, that I 
can just see from where I sit breaking on the beach, and far 
bej^ond, between the islands of Toboga and Flamingo, rolls 
the Pacific, its dimpled waves glittering in the first rays of 
sunlight that has broken the cloudy day. This, you know, 
is the wet season, and the rain it raineth every day. All 
things are damp, and woollens that have hung a day are 
covered with blue mould that hangs thick on gloves and 
books. The paper on which I write is wet as if soaked. 
This will in some measure account for the blotted appearance 
that is unavoidable. 

It would be gratifying to me to see some of the theoretical 
amalgamationists of the States, those at least who pre- 
tend to virtue and intelligence, thrust into and compelled 
to form part of the society of Panama, in which there is no 
distinction as to color or race. Practical miscegenation is 
the order of the day. My servant is a full-blooded negro 
from the island of Jamaica ; he is married to a pure blonde 
Englishwoman, who came out here as a governess to an 
English family. The other day there came and sat down by 
me at table a couple, one of whom was white, the other 
black. The white women seem to prefer the black men, as 
a general rule, the black men rather prefer their own color. 
Slavery was abolished here some thirty years ago. The 
blacks now demand and receive social equality. There are 
two very respectable tri- weekly newspapers published here, 
one of which appears each alternate day. The editor of one 
of these is a mulatto. The habits of the people, particularly 
the mixed breeds, are filthy in the extreme. The children 



426 Thomas Kilby Smith 

go about perfectly naked. The women wear but one gar- 
ment, a good many of the men nothing but a breech clout. 
The scenery about Panama is very beautiful, the bay es- 
pecially, with its delightful group of islands, and enlivened 
by ships, steamers, and small craft, offers a water view un- 
surpassed ; while the grandeur of the forests, with their rich 
tropical verdure clothing the mountains that loom up from 
the plains which stretch on every side, with their groves 
of gay, flowering trees and shrubs fills with wonder the 
stranger to the tropics. The exquisite flower called "E 
Spiritu Santo," the flower of the Holy Ghost, was brought 
to me this morning, having just come into bloom. Truly 
a wonder and curiosity in the floral kingdom. It is purely 
white and like wax, excepting just under the wings of the 
dove, that seems brooding upon the nest, there is a tinge 
of pink. I suppose it has been described to you before. 
It grows from a bulb ; the flowers open along the top of a 
stalk somewhat after the manner of lilies ; the bud before 
opening is about the size of a pigeon's ^'g'g, and as the leaves 
unfold, you see in the centre this exquisitely beautiful image 
of a dove, body, head, neck, wings outstretched, pure white 
and perfect. There are many beautiful flowers, the wax 
plant prettier than any; fine roses. 



United States Consui,ate, 

Panama, Aug. 21, 1867. 

My dear Daughter : 

To my surprise, I have not found the insects here as 
numerous or so annoying as at home, though there are 
creatures I have not seen that infest the houses, whose bite 
is almost deadly, a kind of scorpion, that crawls to the ceil- 
ing and drops upon the bed. They are as large as a small 
crawfish, and sometimes one is covered with fifty others, for 
the young ones cling to and cover the mother, whom they 
ultimately eat up. Fortunately, they will not bite unless 
disturbed ; they may crawl over you in your sleep and leave 
you unhurt, but if you accidentally touch them, they use 



Letters 427 

the sting at the end of their tail with instant and terrible 
effect. The pain is excessive, sometimes the victim is seized 
with lockjaw, always to a certain extent paralyzed. The 
country is infested with many kinds of serpents not described 
in natural history ; some of them are very venomous, others 
of the boa-constrictor tribe attain to a very large size. One 
of these was killed a short time since within a brief distance 
from the Consulate in the city that weighed fifty-six pounds, 
and was eighteen feet in length. There is a kind of snake 
here, very long, of a bright green color, but not larger round 
than a quill ; these hang and twine upon the trees resembling 
the trailing vines and parasitical plants, and are deadly in 
their bite. There is another smaller kind of a vivid green 
and gold color, dazzlingly beautiful, whose venom is incur- 
able. The vampire obtains here in great numbers. An 
acquaintance of mine, who last night related to me the cir- 
cumstance, killed one of them in the church last Sunday, 
that measured twelve inches ; but this was considered a 
small specimen. The stories you have heard of this bat are 
not exaggerated, on the contrary, scarcely come up to the 
truth. They are exceedingly troublesome in this part of the 
country. They attack chickens and turkeys on the roost at 
night, and suck their blood under their feet till they fall life- 
less. They bleed horses and cattle to death in a single 
night. If a native falls asleep, leaving his toe out of the 
blanket, they will suck blood from it, till their victim is 
almost exhausted and blood continues to flow from the 
wound that is difficult to heal for days after the puncture has 
been made. They do not bite, but by means of warts or 
excrescences that grow about their mouths, suck a hole 
through the skin, near a vein that their instinct teaches 
them to discover, and while the process of suction is going 
on, and that is not painful, they keep up a constant and 
noiseless vibration of their wings, that in the hot night lulls 
their prey to sweetest slumber. I believe they do not attack 
man or poultry near the head or breast, but always at the 
toe. Horses they always seize on the neck, near the withers. 
They are an exceedingly ugly creature, somewhat like our 
common bat very much exaggerated, and with a crooked 



428 Thomas Kilby Smith 

horn on their head. They look exactly like the devil. The 
fauna of the Isthmus, likewise, has been very much neglected 
in description by all naturalists whose works I have read. I 
have been told of many strange animals that roam the woods, 
of which I cannot pretend to give you an idea. Amoiig 
them is a sort of tapir, with an immense snout more than a 
yard in length ; these are frequently seen larger than a Dur- 
ham cow. There are several kinds of ant-eaters, great 
animals with mouths not larger than a rat's, and with 
tongues from three to four feet long. These are amphibious 
animals ; also a sort of fresh- water sea-cow, that comes out 
from the rivers and feeds on the shore ; these are often fifteen 
hundred to two thousand pounds weight, and of these no his- 
torian speaks. I have myself seen here in the city many small 
animals that are kept for pets, a sort of marmot or marmo- 
set, and a creature quite black and resembling our mink; 
many other creatures I never heard of. I have also seen 
many monkeys, and think that last Sunday I ate of one, but 
of this am not sure. Some of them are very small, others so 
large that yesterday I mistook one that had laid down in the 
plaza for a boy, and wondered what the man was pulling 
him along by a string for, till the creature erected himself 
on his hind legs and stood almost as high as the man's 
shoulder. Of the lizard kind there are many varieties, 
among them the iguana, that is eaten and highly esteemed 
by some for food, though it is said if one indulges too freely 
in the luxury, his skin becomes covered with a sort of scaly 
eruption. Their eggs are also deemed a delicacy, and some- 
times they catch the creature, cut it open, take from it its 
eggs and let it go, to recover for further operations. These 
iguanas grow to a great size, some of them measuring five 
or six feet. To the ornithologist, no more interesting 
field is open. Rare birds of every hue in plumage, and 
some with the clearest, richest, purest note you can imagine, 
abound. Parrots and parroquets are very numerous, and 
easily tamed. They ofier them for half a dollar and upwards. 
The humming-birds are exquisite. Quail abound, and the 
guinea-fowl in two sizes are wild here. There is one 
song bird, whose whistle is louder, clearer, far more musical 



Letters 429 

than that of any bird I ever Hstened to, that is often 
caged. They are about the size of a robin, but of va- 
riegated plumage of a rich gold and jet black, something 
like a goldfinch. They perform almost one entire bar. 
The insect world is rich in butterflies, and these I have 
no language to describe, so glittering is their color, so large 
is their size. Some specimens have been sold for an ounce, 
or what would be worth with you twenty-five dollars. For 
fish, there are many varieties, some of which are very 
good eating, while the gold and silver fish abound. Sharks 
are very plentiful, and large schools of the black whale are 
often seen spouting in the harbor. I wrote in my last letter 
that one had been taken, and yesterday another was caught 
by the crew of a whaler that had just come to anchor. The 
pearl oysters abound near the Pearl Islands of Panama, some 
forty miles distant. I have not visited them as yet, but ex- 
pect .to shortly. There are now employed upon these islands 
an average of four hundred and fifty native divers. A boat, 
or submarine explorer as it is called, has been invented, and 
is now here, by means of which it is expected that larger 
and finer pearls and shells than have ever before been 
brought to light, will be fished up. The usual method of 
fishing is attended with many disadvantages and dangers. 
The divers cannot go beyond a certain depth, about seven 
fathoms. They are at all times in danger of an attack from 
the Tinteros ground sharks and Macugos. They can only 
work three hours per day, just before and after low slack 
water, on account of the heavy currents. These difl5culties, 
it is expected, by the use of new and improved machinery, 
will be overcome. I have as yet been very little distance 
into the country, so that I cannot very well describe the 
forests or the flora. The latter I imagine from what speci- 
mens I have seen must be inexpressibly beautiful. In former 
times there were nunneries here, and as relics many a rose 
now blooms from scions of bushes planted by the sisterhood, 
of a size, beauty, and fragrance almost indescribable ; some 
of these, with dahlias and other flowers of our own, I have 
seen and recognized with pleasant memories ; but the 
strange and wonderfully beautiful flowers and shrubs in- 
digenous to the soil are seen only here. 



430 Thomas Kilby Smith 

The funeral of a young girl passed my door not long 
since, the first funeral I have witnessed here. First in 
procession was borne a table covered with a white silk 
cloth, and on this was strewn a profusion of flowers ; 
then came a very handsome cofiSn slung in white silken 
bands, one end of each being carried by a bearer and 
two small boys holding ribbons attached, marching a little 
in front ; after this a crowd of well dressed men, not in 
marching order, but in groups, many of them smoking, and 
the cortege brought up by a priest well dressed, who for 
this occasion was not smoking, although many of them do 
as they walk along the streets in their long black cloaks. 
You would be amused to see them carry their babies here ; 
the imps are generally quite naked, and they all ride, 
straddled, on the mother's or nurses' hips, clinging like 
little monkeys. I took one of them in my hands the other 
day, it felt queer and cold like a fish. You ask if I was sea- 
sick during my voyage. Not in the least, nor can I say I 
made either friends or many acquaintances. It was a week 
of rest to me, and upon the whole I enjoyed it, though I 
think life at sea rather a humdrum afiair after the first day 
or two. There is very little romance about it, and I dare 
say Miss Eliza Cook, who wrote A Life on the Ocean Wave, 
had never been to sea. 

This morning I saw a lady standing in the balcony of the 
hotel with her hair down and combed back, and though she 
was tall or taller than you, it came within two or three 
inches of touching the ground. It is very common for ladies 
to wear their hair in this way, even in the evening, but 
always in the morning at home. They are passionately 
fond of dancing, and dance well. Their dances, for the most 
part, are like ours, the round dances being the favorites, 
except the Spanish dance, which is peculiar and very fascin- 
ating. They have card-tables, at which high play goes on, 
and the dancers leave the floor to take a chance, and having 
played a while resume the dance. The Bishop goes to all 
the balls and parties attended by his chaplain, and joins 
in the festivities, except that he don't dance. He seems 



Letters 43 1 

to be a very clever man, and I have become acquainted 
with him. The ladies dress very expensively and in very 
good taste, many of the dresses being imported from Paris, 
They marry very young. I know a lady who has been 
married twelve years, who has buried two children, and 
who has now seven living, the youngest being about two 
months, who is only twenty-six years old, and is very 
handsome. She danced at all the balls. A young lady 
was pointed out to me the other day as being not quite 
fourteen, and she will be married soon. I thought she 
was twenty. They are mostly very brunette, though I have 
seen some nearly blonde. All have been very polite to me, 
though, as but few of them talk French and none of them 
English, it does not cost much, as we have little to say to 
each other. There are no schools here, and I imagine they 
are not very cultivated. At Ivima and Valparaiso, you find 
the most fascinating Spanish women. The wife of my ser- 
vant was an English governess, and is said to be accom- 
plished, speaking French, Spanish, etc., and expected to 
keep a school, but fell into bad health and was compelled to 
marry my servant. He is a colored man from Jamaica, and 
thus far makes me a tolerably good servant. I have recently 
had a visit from Admiral Palmer of our navy. . . . There 
is a pretty fair society of navy men. Captain Spicer of the 
Dakota is a clever fellow and a fine musician. We have 
no lack of music, and of first rate quality, piano, guitar, 
flute, and vocal music. An Italian troop passed through 
to Guatemala the other day and gave a concert. Indeed, I 
had concert from them all the while they were here, three 
or four days, as they occupied the next room to me. I 
enclose you a ticket. Panama is an expensive place, and 
all live as if to-day was the last day. 



United States Consulate, 

Panama, Sept. 17, 1867. 
My dear Wife : 

I write a few lines in anticipation of the arrival of the 
coming mail due 17th inst. I shall sail for San Francisco in 



432 Thomas Kilby Smith 

the steamer Montana that leaves this port that day, unless I 
am withheld by some unanticipated intelligence from the 
States. It is my intention to remain in California some six 
or seven days; therefore, if I start on the 19th, the voj-age 
requiring thirteen daj^s, I shall arrive, barring accident, on 
the 3d October, remaining in San Francisco till the 9th Oc- 
tober. I shall return to this point on or about the 23d Octo- 
ber. So that you will not receive intelligence of me again till 
the arrival of the Montana steamer. I will write immediately 
on my arrival at San Francisco, though I .shall be the bearer 
of my own letters part of the way home. My despatches 
per this steamer will not be of a very interesting character. 
No events of importance have transpired, and I have not felt 
particularly like writing. On Saturday last I made a voy- 
age to Taboga, one of the islands of the bay, and was hand- 
somely entertained by a British man-of-war, lying there, that 
gave me a salute of nine guns, and a fine dinner. I was 
also entertained on board a large Australian steamer, the 
Rakaiva, Captain Millet, with lunch, and on shore at dinners, 
breakfasts, etc., by the Superintendent of the works, a 
highly accomplished Scotchman, by the name of Nuss. He 
has a large force, several hundred men, under him, workers 
in iron, brass, and the machinery for ships. I returned on 
the fine Guatemala steamer, Talca, well pleased with my 
voyage and visit, that did me good in the change of air. 
Last night was the occasion of the largest and most elegant 
ball ever given in Panama. It was got up by the foreigners 
and given to the Panameros. The whole hotel was ap- 
propriated to the purpose, a flooring laid in the large court 
for dancing, and the balconies festooned with the flags of 
all nations. I am frank to say that I never saw so fine a 
ball given anywhere. The ladies were richly dressed ; the 
supper, wines, etc. , were most superb and bountiful, and the 
dancing and gambling was kept up till six o'clock this morn- 
ing, I know. How much longer I cannot say, for at that 
hour I left. You would have been amused to see me take 
charge ... of the very Reverend Bishop of Panama, 
with whom I am apparently a favorite. I took the old 
gentleman . . . out to the wine room and regaled him 



Letters 433 

on champagne punch to his heart's content. He always 
mingles with the festivities here. . . . The passion for 
these amusements pervades all classes and conditions of men 
and women in these countries. I cannot complain of any lack 
of civility or politest courtesy on the part of all public func- 
tionaries and private citizens towards myself ; indeed, I have 
been overwhelmed with attention, and my flag has had all 
the honors. I delivered a speech last night, and was the 
author of some toasts and sentiments. 

I believe I have written you that the Bay of Panama is so 
called from the immense number of fish that swarm in the 
waters. The word in the vernacular signifying " fishy." I 
never had an opportunity till my visit to Taboga to have 
ocular demonstration of the aptness of the designation. The 
water is perfectly clear, so clear that you can look many, 
many feet, more than thirty, beneath the surface, and for 
hours I stood watching fish of the most brilliant and beauti- 
ful colors you can imagine, disporting themselves, or seeking 
their prey. No word painting can convey an idea of the 
brilliancy of the hue or the variety of coloring that these 
fish present. Their appearance darting through the bright 
and perfectly clear water, reminds you of an Arabian tale. 
Indeed, I have never read anything in the wildest romance 
that ever came before my eye to equal what nature and the 
everyday occurrences of life present. The most vivid and 
ingenious imagination sinks into insignificance before the 
great Creator and the works of Nature. 



On board Steamship " Montana," 

Pacific Ocean, Sept. 21, 1867. 

My dear Daughter Bettie: 

We have a right staunch ship, and a clever captain and 
good crew. We are bowling along over a summer sea, 
through the soft air of the tropics, at the rate of two hun- 
dred and fifty miles a day, our course is N. W. and \ W. 

We have passed out of the Gulf of Panama, and are now 

28 



434 Thomas Kilby Smith 

hauling up north, and after a while when we have taken an 
observation, before closing this letter I will give you our 
latitude and longitude, so that by reference to your map, 
you can indicate our position. We have upwards of five 
hundred passengers, among them a party of ladies and 
gentlemen who have started on a pleasure excursion to 
make a voyage quite around the world. From San Fran- 
cisco they will take passage on this company's splendid 
steamer China for China and the East Indies ; after travers- 
ing that wonderful country, they will sail for Europe, and 
expect to be back in New York within nine months from 
the time of starting. They are pleasant and companionable 
people of New York, though one of the gentlemen, I think, 
is dying of consumption. I helped his wife to minister to 
him to-day, and fear he will not live to his journey's end. 
We have also a lively and musical set of bright colored pas- 
sengers from Germany in the shape of one thousand canary 
birds, who are emigrating to California, each in his own tiny 
wicker cage in company with some blackbirds, thrushes, 
bob-o' links and guinea-pigs, not forgetting some Poland 
chickens with top-knots, all in charge of their owner, a 
stout, florid-looking fellow, who makes three or four of these 
trips every year, and who is wonderfully expeditious in 
cleaning, feeding, and watering his flock. Such a chirping, 
chattering and warbling as a thousand canaries make at feed- 
ing time you never heard. We have on board one hundred 
and sixty-two children. One of these last interesting speci- 
mens strolled into my state-room yesterday, and gobbled up 
two of my shoes, leaving me quite in despair, as they were 
odd shoes, and the two left were for the same foot. I had 
the ship searched to no end, and had quite given them up as 
the prey of the spoiler, when my cabin boy returned with 
the boots triumphantly, having discovered them stowed away 
with a tin trumpet among the mother's clothes. I receive a 
great deal of consideration on board ship, having been given 
my choice of state-rooms, and seated at the right hand of the 
captain at dinner, a distinction much sought after. The 
captain is profoundly polite, has given me the run of his 
own cabin, presented me with a case of wine, and turned 



Letters 435 

over his own steward as my special body servant. If the 
ship was my own private yacht, I could not have more care 
and attention or more luxury. Ex-Senator Gwin, or Duke 
Gwin as he is sometimes called, ... is aboard, and I 
cannot but contrast our relative positions now and what they 
were ten years ago, when he was the proud Senator from 
California. 



All day yesterday, that was bright and pleasant, we 
coasted along the shores of the Gulf of Panama and Parida, 
land and islands almost constantly in sight, the shores 
clothed with densest forest to the water's edge, except here 
and there where lofty rocks would rear their gaunt forms 
against the sky. With the naked eye we could observe the 
graceful palms throwing their long branches over the waves 
that rippled at their feet, and with the aid of the glass, we 
could discern the fruit hanging in ripe clusters. The view 
and voyage were enchanting, and only needed companion- 
ship of the loved to make it Paradise. The temperature is 
invariable, about 85° ; the air humid, and the rushing 
motion of the ship cleaving her way through the billows 
gives always on the deck an inspiriting breeze. I am 
taking back my health with every inspiration, and as I pass 
through the Golden Gate shall be a new man. Now as I 
write we are quite out to sea, and far out of sight of land. 
At 12.45 P-M. passed and exchanged signals with steamer 
Golden City from San Francisco, bound to Panama, 427 
miles. At 3 p.m. our course was N. W. Cape Blanco abeam. 
Passed Point Gilones at 6.30 p.m. distant 7 miles. You 
will perceive we are running along the coast, passing Costa 
Rica, San Salvador, Guatemala. From 7 p.m. to midnight, 
constant heavy rains, frequent vivid lightning, and terrific 
thunder. 

Sunday, September 22d. This day comes in variable 
winds and dark raining weather ; at midnight course N. W. 
by W. -^ N., at 6 a.m. moderate breeze from the South. 
Nothing in sight this forenoon. Rose very early, took, as 
is my habit, a cold salt bath. As I sat astern reading, a 



436 Thomas Kilby Smith 

sweet little bird, about the size of a Java sparrow, with beau- 
tiful plumage, flew on board and lit at my very feet. The 
little wanderer was very tired, almost exhausted, but he 
would not permit me to catch him. Still he would not fly 
away from the ship, and after I had driven him into the 
main saloon I gave up the pursuit. The captain and a dele- 
gation of the passengers came to me to ask that I would 
conduct Divine service, attracted, I suppose, by my position 
and perhaps uniform. I am all unused to making sacrifice 
before the I^ord, but " the cause that needs assistance, the 
wrong that needs resistance, the future in the distance, and 
the good that I can do, ' ' is my motto. So I possessed my- 
self of prayer-book and Bible, studied out the lessons of the 
day, and at the appointed hour, took my stand in the large 
saloon, behind a table spread with an American flag, myself 
arraj^ed in full regimentals, and surrounded by the Captain, 
as many of the ship's company as were ofi" duty, and all of 
the passengers who could crowd in, making a congregation 
of four or five hundred souls. I gave them the Church Ser- 
vice, with the proper lessons of the day from Jeremiah and 
Luke, a couple of psalms and hymns, an exhortation and 
dismissal, and the most of them went ofi" with opinion I had 
been bred to the Church. 

And now, my dear daughter, in the presence of a mighty 
storm, gradually growing worse, I bid you adieu. May 
God bless and preserve you and take the place of your 
earthly father in giving that protection you so much need 
now. 



San Mateo, California, October 9, 1867. 
My dear Wife : 

The weather, however, is gloriously beautiful, and would 
seem to be perfectly healthy for all. I cannot now give my 
impressions of California. It is impossible for me to write 
now as I would, ideas throng so fast that expression is lost 
to me. Suffice it to say, that all I ever thought or dreamed 



Letters 437 

of this wonderful, glorious land is more than realized. The 
whole earth is fecund with animal and vegetable life. The 
choicest blessings have been showered with the most lavish 
hand of a merciful and bountiful Providence upon a chosen 
people. To descend to particulars I cannot ; all I might say- 
would serve to give but the faintest idea. I have been par- 
ticularly favored in the facilities offered me for coming in 
contact with the leading men of San Francisco ; indeed I 
may say of the State at large, and all of my time since my 
arrival has been fully occupied. The people have welcomed 
me with a warm welcome, such as one might expect in re- 
turning to his home. I have been taken to their houses and 
hearts as a brother. At this time I am a sojourner and 
guest with Col. Hayward of San Mateo, at his country seat 
in that town and county, about twenty miles from San Fran- 
cisco. He discovered and worked successfully a gold 
mine, and his energy, integrity, perseverance, courage, and 
indomitable will are as marked and as boundless as the 
wealth of the mine which has made his name famous 
throughout the world. This gentleman has turned his 
house, grounds, stables, all they contain over to me to use 
as my own. Indeed, has left me in full occupancy, and 
would be well pleased if I could enjoy for a much longer 
time than I can spare part of the blessings poured out upon 
him. It would take pages to describe this earthly paradise. 
The grounds, fruits, flowers, trees, birds, poultry, horses, 
cows, and all that go to make up a splendid seat on the 
shore of the most beautiful bay in the world, in the most per- 
fect climate in the world, enriched with all that taste, and 
genius and art and wealth could suggest and procure. He has 
two race tracks of a mile in extent each, and among his other 
trainers has Hiram Woodruff's right hand man, who studied 
the art of horses under that genius for fourteen years. Mr. 
Hayward owns and trains a number of racehorses both for 
the turf and trotting course, but never permits one to appear 
in a public race, or make a trial of speed for money. He 
keeps up a racing stud of over a hundred horses only for his 
own amusement. Everything else with him is upon the 
same scale. The wealth and manner of life of these men is 



43 8 Thomas Kilby Smith 

incredible. Mr. Ralston, the brother of Walter's friend, is 
another of the successful ones. He has a place a few miles 
above this, say twenty-five miles from the city, and drives in 
and out every day on wheels, driving himself four-in-hand 
with relays, and accomplishing the distance invariably, 
morning and evening, in two hours. 

Cisco, California, Oct, i6, 1867. 
I cannot say this time thus far have I penetrated the 
bowels of the land, but I may say thus far have I ascended 
to its highest peaks. At the present writing I am at the 
end of the great Pacific Railroad, as far as they have been 
able up to this time to lay the track on this side of the moun- 
tains. I am in Placer County, on the confines of Nevada 
County, in the State of California, five thousand five hundred 
feet above the lev^el of the sea, and within a few hundred feet 
of the summit level of the Nevada Mountains that is only 
fifteen miles distant. I am two hundred and twenty miles 
from San Francisco, six hundred and eighty miles from Salt 
I^ake. So much for position. My health is better, but I 
have a terrible cough and cold, the result of change, nothing 
of any consequence, except the temporary inconvenience. I 
have only a single moment to write ere the train starts back. 
I shall go no farther up as the atmosphere is intensely rarified 
and the weather is bitterly cold ; moreover I am pushed for 
time, as I want to start back for Panama on the 19th, though 
I may possibly be detained. I wish you could see me as I 
write and the rugged face of nature grimly frowns upon me. 
Every mountainside and valley hereabouts is teased and torn 
for the precious ore. Miners, Chinese, hardy men of all 
sorts are about me. 



On board Steamer " Golden City," 
In the Gulf of Panama, October 31, 1867. 

I shall probably be too busy on my arrival at Panama, 
which we expect to make to-morrow morning, to be able to 

• His brother, Walter G. Smith of the SS. Cortes, b. 1828, d. 1859. 



Letters 439 

write, and I have had a strange indisposition, that I have 
been unable all the voyage to overcome, to write to anybody. 
Notwithstanding I had determined to take advantage of the 
leisure to give you full detail of my travels and adventures ; 
coming down from a bracing climate to the tropics relaxes 
my nerves and unfits me for fatigue. I think my health 
considerably improved, and for many accounts am glad I 
made the voyage, my only regret being that I could not re- 
main longer in California. Our trip down has been so ex- 
ceedingly pleasant, there having been good company of 
ladies and gentlemen, among the latter Senators Stewart 
and Conness, friends of mine, and some army ofl&cers. 
Hilarity and much mirth has prevailed, and a most pleasant 
voyage secured. 



Panama, Oct. 12, 1868. 

I arrived here Saturday last safe and without accident 
from my voyage that was devoid of interest or incident other 
than would arise from a most uncomfortably crowded ship. 
An opposition line has had the effect of reducing fares, that 
results in many persons whose proper place is in the steerage 
finding their way into the first-class cabin. Moreover, emi- 
gration is stimulated, and a ship calculated to carry three or 
four hundred comfortably, brought eight hundred passengers 
and a hundred soldiers, to say nothing of the multitude of 
children that are not counted. Nevertheless, sandwiched as 
I was between a Jew and a young midshipman, in a narrow 
and contracted stateroom, sleeping on a wet mattress, in a 
berth not long enough or large enough for a liberal coffin, 
sitting all the day in wet shoes, and harassed with a multi- 
tude of children in all stages of disease, of which hives, 
smallpox, and measles were most prevalent, and dieted on 
foul and ill-cooked food, I managed to get through in better 
health than when I left home, and at present writing am 
stronger than when I took my sad farewell from you. I find 
Panama in a state of revolution that is pregnant with battle 
and murder by the dagger and the bowl ; assassination by 



440 Thomas Kilby Smith 

poison is frequent. An expedition is being fitted out for 
" Chiriqui," soldiers are being conscripted, leading citizens 
incarcerated to force loans, and all the excitement, panics, 
outrage, incident to the preliminaries of war among a semi- 
savage and infuriated people obtain in this theatre, of which 
my flag forms the drop curtain. My advent was hailed 
with great joy and acclaim, particularly by those who repre- 
sent the interest of the transit, and indeed all foreigners. 
The self-styled President of Panama, and he who represents 
the party in power (and that considers itself the Govern- 
ment), is named Correoso, a half-blooded negro, upon whom 
I propose to call in person to-day. This Government admits 
that it is revolutionary, and is opposed by a partj^ of about 
equal numbers, headed by a prefect of department called 
Santiago Agnero, who, with a force well equipped and 
armed, is waiting the conflict about to be forced. The prob- 
lems of these Governments, de facto and dejure, in a constant 
convulsion and frequent revolution, are not only difficult to 
solve, but well nigh impossible to state to the correct under- 
standing of those unfamiliar with language and customs of a 
race depraved by miscegenation. These revolutionists, this 
Government is to-day a government of negroes or their rep- 
resentatives. These are the Radicals of Panama, self-styled 
Radicals, and answer to the Radical Party of the States. It 
is shocking to see the excesses committed and the vast and 
varied interests jeopardized by the recognition of what those 
now in power consider their political rights, but until they 
are suppressed by an armed and stronger force I am bound 
to recognize them. I see here to-day what will be apparent 
ere long in the fairest portion of our own fair land. In that 
6.a.y and hour God help the weak. 

Aside from these internal convulsions, upon which I will 
not longer dwell, Panama is increasing in importance as a 
commercial centre, while its isthmus is the great highway of 
the nations for the entire world. There are now arriving 
and departing from this port and Aspinwall (the same thing 
and identical in interest) twenty-eight steamers per month, 
foreign steamers, nearly every day a larger number of 
foreign regular liners than leaves any other port in the 



Letters 441 

world. These connect with New York, San Francisco, 
AustraHa, Liverpool, Saint Nazaire, France, Lima, Central 
America, China, Japan, the British possessions in India, the 
South Pacific, New Zealand, Southampton, Valparaiso, 
Greytown, Carthagena, and ports along the Caribbean Sea, 
Havana and West India Islands, connecting with all lines 
of steamers running from thence. It is not easy to take in 
without considerable reflection the vast idea of travel that all 
this suggests, or of the vast and varied interests that are 
directly here at stake, and that are at this moment trifled 
with and trenched upon by a parcel of marauding savages. 

Panama, Oct. 28, 1868. 

The last steamer brought me no letters. . . The 
papers advise you of the political troubles of this country 
that is now in an active state of revolution. The seat of 
war is at a distance, and we hear of battles and their results 
from time to time. The conservation of American interests 
and the protection of its citizens resident here is the most 
onerous of my duties. 

By last advices I see the Radicals are carrying the State 
elections, whereby the success of Grant is assured. The 
suicidal policy of Seymour, Vallandigham, and their selfish 
policy is at once expected and its results not unexpected by 
me. 



Panama, Nov. 16, 1868. 
My dear Son Dehon : 

I have just received a present of grapes and pears grown 
in California. One of these last, placed by myself upon ac- 
curate letter scales, weighed one and a half pounds. Now, 
allowing for shrinkage in a voyage of fifteen days, and for 
the fact that the fruit must have been plucked green to in- 
sure its transportation through the tropics without rot, there 
can be little doubt it would have weighed in its full ripeness 



442 Thomas Kilby Smith 

and size at least two pounds, if not more. You may judge 
of its magnitude when I tell you it was fifteen inches in the 
larger circumference, and fourteen inches measuring from 
the stem round, being a little broader than long, larger than 
a pint cup. The flavor was not very good because pulled 
unripe. 

I have no doubt that many pears larger than the one de- 
scribed came down with the lot. They bring immense 
apples, and beets, and other roots from San Francisco, most 
of their flavor lost before arrival. 

You would laugh to see three monkeys we have here, or 
rather one monkey and two marmosets, little fellows about 
the size and something the appearance of a gray squirrel, 
save that the tail is longer, not so bushy, and that their face 
resembles the human countenance. These creatures are 
very interesting in their antics. We keep the larger monkey 
tied, the two smaller in a box from which they are occasion- 
ally let out. They might run about all the while if it were 
not for their mischievous propensities, for they will not leave 
the premises. The monkey that is tied is very fond of one 
of these little fellows, that he holds in his arms, kisses, 
fondles, and nurses just as a mother would her child, often 
places it on his back, where the little creature goes to sleep 
clinging closely as he hops about, and swings on his tether. 
The companion marmoset he does not seem to affect, but if 
his pet is taken notice of he makes jealous outcry. The 
rascal has become very fond of me, and always peers into 
my pocket when I give him the chance. He will eat almost 
anything, and latterly is becoming addicted to stimulants, 
not hesitating much at raw brandy. He will take toddy till 
he becomes quite tipsy, and it would convulse you with 
laughter to see the varying expressions of his countenance, 
as mobile as a man's, and his quaint attitudes as he passes 
' ' from grave to gay, from lively to severe. ' ' As for his little 
favorite, while he is in the flush of his libations his affection 
knows no bounds, and the small one, being equally pleased, 
surrenders at discretion. Then he takes it in his nervous 
hands, holds it out at arm's-length, turns it round and looks 
in its face, chatters and coos to it, and finally laying it down 



Letters 443 

before him, proceeds to search it all over, fingering its fur, 
peering and peeking just as close as ever good dame did into 
baimie's head. The /r^j/f^^ never stirs in the operation till 
concluded, when he is lifted up to his perch on his guardian's 
back, when he puts his little arms round his neck and gently 
falls fast asleep. I have tried to teach the larger libel on 
humanity to smoke cigars, but with indifferent success ; he 
will sit quietly while I puS" in his face and wriggle his nose 
and turn up his eyes after the most orthodox style ; likewise 
he will be inspired by the usual effect and become sick and 
stupid, but if I give him the lighted cigar, he burns himself 
all over and then pulls it to pieces. The funniest exhibition 
you can imagine, as he claps the lighted end first to one 
place then to another, and hopping from the bum, and de- 
liberately squatting, seizes the end of his tail and sets fire to 
that, and as it smokes up, looks first at it and then in my 
face as if to ask what does it all mean. These creattures 
have all the passions — anger, fear, love, and revenge — that 
attaches to man ; they never forget or forgive. I saw one 
of the larger kind, as tall, if not taller, than Grace, march 
down the street, hand in hand with a British sailor, who 
was taking him off aboard ship, and he looked like a little 
black man walking. I am told of one much larger than 
this, down the coast, that is left unchained during the day, 
and that performs many of a servant's offices, waiting on 
table, bringing water when he is told, etc. Well, I 've 
written you a long letter on monkej^s. "What do you find to 
amuse yourself with nowadays ? Have you finished up all 
the novels in Mr. Brotherhead's library ? or are you a 
mighty hunter ? I should like to have you improve yoiu* 
horsemanship a little bit, for one of these days it may stand 
you in stead. . . . You know how anxious I am that 
you should excel in all your scholastic exercises, and am 
sure you will do your best. I want you to exercise patience 
with your brothers, and be always respectful to your mother, 
grandmother, and sisters. If you get into any sort of trouble, 
no matter what it is, always go straight to 3^our mother for 
advice. She will always be your best and truest friend and 
the most competent to advise you. 



444 Thomas Kilby Smith 

I enclose to you a bit I cut from the newspaper, you can 
apply it if you see proper. I believe you have discovered 
some taste for tobacco, but I would strenuously advise you 
not to touch it in any form until you have arrived at man's 
estate, because of the injurious effect its use would have on 
your health. It being a season of war here, I suppose you 
would like to know something about the warriors. I send 
you some papers that contain a pretty fair account. The 
victorious general is named Correoso, a half-blooded Spanish 
negro, and his little army, about three hundred strong, is 
mostly composed of negroes. You will discover by the 
paper that they have just returned from a successful expedi- 
tion to Chiriqui and Santiago de Veraguas, where Dr. Henry 
Dickson lives. By the bye, I may here mention that all the 
inhabitants fled from that city except himself. I have not 
heard from him directly, but through others, and that he 
is well. As I was writing, Correoso and his men came to 
port last evening, and I rode down to see the debarkation. 
The army was composed of a most motley crew, and were 
received with the most profound demonstrations of delight 
by the party that favors them. This party is composed of 
the black population and the half-breeds and mixed races, 
who call themselves " Liberals," and answer to what we 
call Radicals. The women turned out in great force, about 
four horrid, fearfully ugly negresses to every soldier. Women 
of all ages, all races, in all climes, I believe, are ever ready 
to welcome the victorious soldier, no matter what cause he 
fights in. The welcome on this occasion was a warm one, 
and some of the heroes looked as if they would like to be 
saved from their friends. Well, they were got into line, and 
with their little banners flying, marched up to the Plaza, 
trumpets blowing, drums beating, and bells ringing out a 
most dissonant jingle. Then the night closed in and then 
they proceeded to make it hideous, and such a saturnalia I 
hope never to see again. I believe it all ended in sound, 
anyhow I have heard of no deaths. It seems from all ac- 
counts that they had a most savage fight. This army of 
Correoso before leaving here provided themselves with an in- 
voice of breechloading Peabody rifles that were on consign- 



Letters 445 

ment to a mercantile house. These arms are formidable, 
being easily and rapidly loaded, and of great range. These 
gave Correoso a great advantage over the other party, and 
■with a couple of small cannon enabled him to hold them off 
at arm's-length while he gave them a drubbing ; they all 
fought very gallantly, I am told. Their leader, Obaldea, 
was wounded early in the action and taken to some sheltered 
place to lie while the fight was going on. His troops were 
soon driven from the ground and he taken prisoner, where- 
upon he was murdered, and his corpse being fastened by a 
lasso to a horse's tail was dragged into the city in triumph. 
Thus you see these semi-savages emulate some of the heroes 
in ancient history, both sacred and profane, in their treat- 
ment of the slain. So brave were the soldiers, that I am 
told many of them being shot in the leg or in the arm would 
deliberately hack off the maimed limb with their machetes. 

United States Consui^ate, 

Panama, Dec. 13, 1868. 
My dear Son: 

I have written to almost everybody at home excepting 
yourself, and though I have but little to say to you, I can- 
not permit the mail to go without taking my greeting. You 
have just completed the period of life that marks the end of 
boyhood and the beginning of man's estate. Very soon the 
world will call you a young man, and now more than at any 
time in your life are you called upon to place a guard upon 
your passions, to learn self-control, and to form the charac- 
ter that will stamp your whole future life. You will be 
called upon shortly to gain your own livelihood in whatever 
state of life God may place you. You, perhaps for yourself 
fortunately, are not the son of a rich man, and hence you 
must soon learn to put whatever abilities you may have in 
play to make yourself in some way useful to your fellow- 
man, in order to win such reward as will enable you to 
maintain a respectable position in society, without trespass- 
ing upon the rights or privileges of others. By your reading 
and observation you will have learned that many avenues 
are open to you, and you must soon choose for yourself that 



44^ Thomas Kilby Smith 

course in life that will yield you most pleasure and profit and 
enable you to do most good to your fellow-man. You will 
have learned already that you are placed on earth for some 
wise purpose, and not alone for selfish gratifications, and 
your great object in your early life will be to ascertain how 
best to direct the powers with which you are clothed. The 
most I can do for you is to give you a good education and a 
decent maintenance while you are acquiring it, after that 
you must trust to God and your own good sense, sharpened 
by the experience and teaching of others. I do not intend 
to load you down with advice. I throw out these hints be- 
cause I think it time you should learn to reflect and become 
habituated to what we term introspection. Few are able to 
put themselves through this fearful yet necessary ordeal, but 
I assure you it is a matter of prime necessity every night to 
balance your books with God and man. 

I have faith in you and believe you will succeed in life. 
You must try to learn the art of making friends, for it is 
mostly through friends that you will make your way. 
Do the best you can this year at your school. Persevere 
and keep up a bold heart. 

" Ivives of great men all remind us, 
We can make our lives sublime 
And departing, leave behind us 
Footprints on the sands of time." 

Be good, be great, be true to yourself, fear God, but fear 
no man. 



United States Consulate, 

Panama, Christmas, 1868. 
My dear Wife : 

I have been very ill with the fever, the ' ' Calantura, ' ' and 
am now confined to my bed ten days. I am very weak and 
have had a serious time, but I believe the disease is now out 
of my system. I sufier with my head and from pains in my 
limbs, but more than all from the dreadful solitude, nothing 
can be done. There is no danger of my death from this at- 
tack that has passed. 



Letters /^/\.y 

United States Consulate, 

Panama, January 4, 1869. 

My dear Daughter: 



A week since they took me to Taboga, a small island, 
almost a rock rising out of the sea, where there is a hospital 
for naval ofl&cers, and there I have been sojourning until 
yesterday quite alone. On New Year's day I mustered 
strength to be rowed over to the mainland, where I plucked 
an orange and a leaf from the tree on which it grew that 
I send you. This was all for my New Year's. My Christ- 
mas dinner of chicken broth I took in bed. Yesterday 
on my return I found Henry Dickson at the Consulate. 
He had come down to visit me and buy goods, and I suppose 
will write to mother by this mail. I am still very feeble 
from the effects of fever, and the weather being warm and 
my appetite poor, I do not recuperate as fast as I would 
wish, but I think after a while I shall get well. 



United States Consulate, 

Panama, Feb. 3, 1869. 

I have just returned from a voyage to Guatemala, touch- 
ing ai route at Costa Rica, Salvador, and Honduras, travers- 
ing a distance on water of some two thousand and two hun- 
dred miles. My weak condition of health prevented my 
leaving the ship save for brief intervals, so that I can make 
no report of the country from what I saw except that portion 
apparent upon the seaboard and the coast, and two or three 
of the seaports. I do not know that anything I could say 
about these would be interesting to you. But if you will 
procure the History of Columbus by Irving, and, having read 
that, take up Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, having access to 
both works through the public library, you will be well 
repaid in their perusal, and then have the benefit of such 
comments as I can make from what has passed before my 
eyes. The cities or ports of Puntas Arenas, Costa Rica, 
Covento, Salvador, San Jose, of Guatemala, or indeed any 
of the ports on the coast, differ in no essential particulars 



448 Thomas Kilby Smith 

from Panama, my descriptions of which you are already 
familiar with. It is true, earthquakes being more rife, 
the people do not venture upon more than one story to 
their houses, and therefore, if it is possible, there is more 
squalor and dirt. There is the same nudity, the same 
apathy, the same indolence on the part of the natives. The 
same greed for money, and the same licentiousness on the 
part of the adventurers from all nations, who taking their 
lives in their hands, peril not only that life, but honor and 
all, that to a good man makes life dear, in their lust for 
gain. Whichever way one's footsteps tend, through this 
land of gold and silver, pearls and precious stones, of sandal- 
wood and laurel, of mahogany and caoutchoc, of sarsapa- 
rilla and balsam, and bark and indigo and cochineal, and 
cocoa, and coffee, and sugar, and rice, and the thousand 
other luxuries for which the men who live where wheat 
grows have tempted God and caused blood to flow in rush- 
ing tides, whatever avenues to these equatorial regions you 
seek to penetrate, up before 3'ou starts the individual Eng- 
lishman or Scotchman, Frenchman, German, American, of 
course, but in front and before all the cosmopolitan Jew, the 
Israelite steeped in guile ; and these, singly and in pairs, 
oppose you, or cross you, or join you, permeating the land, 
and seeking what their avarice may devour. Small in 
stature, straight in the forehead, narrow-chested, stooped, 
bandy-legged, quick fetret eyes, large dirty hands with 
itching palms, always the same age and pock-marked, with 
mysterious air, army shirts, and little baggage, these creat- 
ures, on steamboats, on muleback, by the diligence or afoot, 
are up and down the earth. People like them used during 
the war to hang upon the flanks and in the rear of the army, 
always in the front just after a battle, jackals, hyenas. 
Here they go in advance, their scent is keen, and wherever 
they go they leave a poison trail festering in foul corruption ; 
the smallest community has felt their blight, wandering 
Jews and adventurers, knowing no law but individual in- 
terest, whose highest hope is gain. These are all you meet, 
and these have given character, as far as such a quasi-social 
character can be given, to all the cities in Southern Ameri- 



Letters 449 

can republics. There is nothing obvious, but the bald, 
sordid intent for the ' ' immediate sou ; ' ' none of the fresh- 
ness and vigor of Western pioneer life, no healthy sport or 
recreation, only acute, sharp trade. The native element feels 
the influence. Religion of any sect is a by word. What 
chance would Christ or his Apostles have, could they come 
in person ? How can their theories be otherwise received 
by those to whom the Jews our Saviour cast from the 
synagogue, were as angels in white raiment ? Oh, how 
contemptible to a fresh, pure, good Cuban or Aztec or 
Otaheitan in their natural state must a Christian (!) have 
appeared, brutalized by lust and avarice. How these good 
people these good radical philanthropists have been swept 
away, and what have we in their place ? I blush for Re- 
ligion, I blush for Christianity, when I see their effects. No 
nation that has felt their blighting influence but reeks in 
shame, vice, wretchedness, or, worse than all, wealth in 
classes, with its attendant luxury that is the parent of all 
other vices. Here, my daughter, is food for reflection, and 
after you shall have read the works I have pointed out to 
you, I want you to read the voyages of Captain Cook, and 
meanwhile looking over \xv\n^' ^ Astoria and Captain Bo7ine- 
ville' s Expeditio7i^ with careful study of that part of United 
States history that appertains to our relations with the 
Indians, keeping yourself well posted through the papers of 
the day with what is just now going on, you will be prepared 
to look into the history of the Crusades, the seven centuries 
war of the Spaniards with the Moors, the advance of the 
English into India, the history of the opium trade, the war 
Kngland succeeded in when founding the present rela- 
tions of England with the Fiji Islands, Australia, New 
Zealand; all of which you can post yourself upon with but 
little exertion, and then, my dear, I will be able to point out 
to you a course of reading that will stimulate your mind for 
stronger food. We are in a progressive age so far as the arts 
and science of manufacture are concerned. Almost all the 
known elements are bent to the will of man. We claim to have 
advanced in ethics and in the science of man's government of 
man. He would be a bold man to-day who would presume 



450 Thomas Kilby Sfnith 

to assert that all temporal government as a science was not 
based upon the laws of Moses, and the divine and sublimated 
law, exemplified by the precept and example of our Saviour 
itself founded upon those laws. This we, as Christians, 
claim is the law of God that we are called upon to proclaim 
to all nations. Our prayer and our hope is that all nations 
shall speak one universal language, and worship one, our 
God. Study history, then, and see what we have already 
accomplished with these heathen nations that are passing 
away almost before our eyes, unannointed, unanealed. We 
plant the Cross, and straightway the light of the nations 
goes out forever. The stranger from the strange land far 
away puts his foot down, and straightway the sins of the 
stranger, not the father, are visited upon the children of the 
third, not the fourth generation, and lo ! a nation dies and 
leaves no sign ! I have been betrayed into something like 
polemics, of which a traveller's tale seldom savors, and so I 
ask your indulgence. Skip whatever part it does not suit 
you to read. 

The most noticeable features in the coast line that seemed 
to glide before us in the passage of the ship like a panorama 
alternately glowing in the livid light of day, and darkening 
in the veiled twilight of these Southern nights, were the 
volcanoes in sight the Cordilleras of the Andes. Some of 
these peaks tower to the height of fourteen thousand feet, 
belching forth suphurous flame and smoke that clouds the 
atmosphere far above their caps, while the red lava over- 
flows and finds its way in rivulets of fire down the sides, in 
their lurid course charring and destroying all impediments. 
These mountains lift their tops so high, that the ordinary 
clouds are midway skyward, and the adventurer who would 
reach the summit must be bathed in vapor before his task is 
half completed. On the brown, bare, lava-gashed and 
tempest-riven slope, thousands of feet above the dimpling 
sea that glints beneath his wondering gaze, reflecting back 
the ardent rays of a vertical sun, shivering in his altitude, 
gasping for breath in an air so rarefied that his lungs almost 
refuse their ofl&ce, he may lave his hands in the passing 
cloud; while the rifts of vapor drifting, cause his brain to 



Letters 451 

reel as with upward gaze the heights on heights, stretching 
far, higher and higher in nobler and grander altitude, are 
revealed, half concealed, half disclosed by Heaven's veils. 
The islands of the coast are of volcanic origin, and at a little 
distance are exquisitely beautiful, clothed with verdure 
from the water's edge all up their graceful slopes. Some of 
them are tall mountains rising from the deep sea, fathomless 
almost at their very water line. The principal cities of 
Central America, like the fabled phoenix, literally spring 
from their own ashes or those of their predecessors buried in 
earth that has quaked for their destruction, and now in terror 
are waiting their turn to come. Guatemala, the largest and 
most populous, has been built three times, and three times 
swallowed up. This is situate high up among the moun- 
tains, but even close to the borders of the sea I had recitals 
from the coast-wise denizens of recent rumbling, and from 
their accounts the surface of the earth would almost seem to 
totter like thin ice to the tread. Nature is wild and gloomy 
and hellish in these regions. Civilization falters before the 
great convulsions and throes of a world unformed and quick- 
ening into being, or passing with an awful crumbling to 
another existence. Man hesitates. Wild beasts and horrid 
reptiles, strange fowls of the air, and still stranger fish hold 
high carnival in the fastnesses of hilltop and mountain, by 
the river and through the gloomy lagoon all down to the 
sea. Some of the wonders of the great deep were revealed to 
me ; and strange stories were told of what peopled the tangled 
forest glades, and found life in the green morass. I saw 
huge whales throw their black and greasy bulk upon the 
ocean's surface, and blow their jets of sparkling brine in rain- 
bow colors high against the morning sun. I saw the famous 
devil fish that Victor Hugo so well describes, and heard 
heart-sickening tales of his capture, and how his victims, 
the pearl divers, were enveloped in his jelly, and sucked by 
a thousand mouths to a dreadful death. I saw the great sea 
alligators and man-eating sharks warring against each other. 
I shot enormous pelicans, one of which would eat as many 
fish for his breakfast as would supply your table for a week. 
I saw the fierce South American lion or puma, and have 



K 



452 TJiomas Kilby Smith 

brought back as spoils the skins of the still more savage 
jaguar. I walked underneath the palm and drank of the 
bright, clear, cold, sparkling fluid that comes from the nut. 
I ate the tamarind fresh from the tree, and saw the coffee 
shrub, and the bales of cochineal, and indigo brought down 
in the quaint, old-fashioned ox-carts, so old-fashioned that 
you see their counterparts limned in the old, old pictures. 
The wheels sawed out of a solid block, the tongue attached 
by raw leather thongs to the horns of the oxen, the hoops 
covered with undressed hide. The drivers marching naked 
with the Biblical cloth about their loins. Much more did I 
see and hear that others have seen and heard before me, and 
can recount far better than I am able, to make up the article 
for the magazine or serial. Still there is a good deal in the 
being brought face to face with that which seems so strange 
in description to the inhabitants of temperate climates. For 
instance, upon one occasion, I took a small boat, and went 
off" to a desolate island where perhaps before my own no 
human foot had trod. It was one of a group offering no 
temptation to the explorer. Yet because it was solitary, 
desolate, where one could be utterly alone, I rowed to it, 
and leaving my boat in charge of its crew at the beach, 
clambered up among the rocks and through the brakes, 
where I thought I might start a deer, and indeed, I am 
sure, I heard one bound with his quick tearing leaps just 
before me, but the cover was too thick for my vision. A 
wood pigeon rose and I shot it. Hardly had the report of 
my gun echoed away when I was startled by the most dis- 
cordant cries, and directly two large parrots winged their 
flight within easy range just over my head. I would not 
fire at them ; they were the same large, green beautifully 
plumaged birds that you see at the Italian shops, and it 
seemed to me little short of murder to take their lives, 
though I am told the young ones make a very good pie. 
Then I sailed under the stars that glittered in reflection 
from the dimpling waves, through the most lovely tropical 
nights that poet's pen ever pictured, the palms clustering on 
the shore. I saw the Southern Cross, beaming in all its 
glory, rising in the horizon, as the Great Bear went down. 



Letters 453 

I saw the moon come up partiall}^ eclipsed only to emerge to 
a more dazzling and effulgent light. I leaned over the 
taffrail as we plowed through waters white as milk, showing 
the same phenomenon that filled the followers of Columbus 
with amazement and dread and that yet remains unexplained 
by our philosophers. I saw the waves part before our prow 
in phosphorescent glow, to meet under our keel like the 
burning billows of a fiery sea. I passed majestic ships with 
all sails set, top royals and sky sails, fljang jibs and stern 
sails, all the canvas that could be crowded on the best mer- 
chantmen that float from England's docks, whitening in the 
sunlight and bellying in the favoring breeze, the whole fair 
fabric " walking the water like a thing of life," — with two 
exceptions, a noble horse, a fair woman — the most beautiful 
object to the eye of man. 

I have seen the Aztec Indian girl, with her almond eye, 
her polished copper skin, her straight black hair, her round 
and supple limbs, her well turned ankle and aristocratic 
hand, pure in lineage from the tribe whose fair daughter 
welcomed the first Spaniards with seductive grace to the 
shores of the New world. She has come to me with her 
calabash, her oranges and pines ; she has offered her ham- 
mock woven from the same fibre, in the same fashion, with 
the same gay coloring that centuries ago tempted the hardy 
adventurer from Castile to repose. But, like the knife 
grinder, I have no stor}^ to tell. My life is like a succes- 
sion of waking dreams, and my thoughts are dreaming as 
the days that weave them. No strength, fading, rolling up 
like a scroll of mouldering parchment, I cannot write to give 
form to vay ideas or expression to the memories. Like the 
sheen of the setting sun purpling with glory the fleecy mists 
that take a thousand forms as they drive athwart the molten 
sky, the light of my life is passing, scintillating with upward 
flash for the brief instant ere it emerges to the dim obscure. 



I am called to a hurried conclusion by the unexpected 
arrival of the Hon. Caleb Cushing, whom I have to meet at 
a diplomatic dinner, after which an interview with the Presi- 



454 Thomas Kilby Smith 

dent, etc., all of which the public prints will fully advise 
you of. 



Washington, Feb. 28, 1868. 
My dear Wipe : 

The papers, of course, have kept you fully advised of the 
all-absorbing interest of the day, about which it is useless 
for me to say one word, save that I rank myself on the side 
of the executive as opposed to the grossly revolutionary 
measures of the radical and partisan methods of Congress. 
The impeachment process is a mere pretense for the perpetu- 
ation of party power. The getting rid of Mr. Johnson is the 
beginning of the formation of a pure oligarchy that will be 
tyrannous in its rule. There is nothing in law to warrant 
the procedure, in fact the President is sustained in his course 
by the best legal minds of the country. Should the opposi- 
tion succeed, it will be without color of law, and I should" 
apprehend very serious trouble. 

The weather here has been stormy to a degree I think I 
have never witnessed. Snow and sleet, a harsh March wind 
prevails to-day, and I am not well. I have accepted, not- 
withstanding, an invitation to a state dinner at the Execu- 
tive Mansion from the President and Mrs. Johnson, to meet 
the Chief Justice and other members of the Supreme Court, 
with other distinguished guests. 

Washington, March 7, 186S. 
My dear Wife : 

The impeachment process drags more slowly than the 
bitter partisans had supposed was possible. From present 
prospects it must be many days before the President can be 
brought to the bar, and afterwards a long time must be con- 
sumed in the trial. Meanwhile, the people from all parts of 
the country will have been heard from. He is calm, com- 
posed, and perfectly hopeful the best legal minds of the 
country are with him. 



Letters 455 

Galt House, Louisville, Nov. 22, 1869. 
My dkar Daughter : 

The prevailing storms, the accounts of which you doubt- 
less noticed in the papers, took full effect upon our line of 
route thither. We had snow and wind among the moun- 
tains, and on the plains near Urbana, Ohio, a tornado fairly- 
carried a car from a side switch to the main track and caused 
a collision whereby we were detained twelve hours. We 
arrived here in a storm, and with brief interval it has stormed 
ever since. As I write, the smoky atmosphere is dull be- 
yond expression, and the rain falls heavily. I came on as 
the guest of General Sherman in a special car, and as the 
same returned without him I declined an invitation to return 
in the same, although he proposed to place Mrs. Belknap, 
the wife of the Secretary of War, under my charge. He 
went to Cincinnati ; I propose to go to Indianapolis to-night, 
and probably from thence to I^ogansport, where I may re- 
main a short time, and from whence I shall probably write 
you. The meeting of the Society of the Army of the Ten- 
nessee was a success in most respects, and I was gratified in 
meeting many of my old comrades. The address of General 
Parker, who delivered the eulogy upon General Rawlins, 
was a most finished production. 



St. Paul, Minnesota, June 14, 1872. 
My dear Sister: 

It would seem vain and egotistical even if you could credit 
the recountal of my adventures ; how, at every turn, upon 
the crowded street, in the railway, even at the hotel, in all 
places strange to me where I go, I find persons crowding up 
to me for recognition, all eager to do me honor. At Cincin- 
nati I had a perfect ovation, and from that place hither and 
all through my meanderings ; brother officers, comrades in 
arms, the relatives of those who served and fell under me, 
the people who keep alive the records of the war and who 
therein have read my name, all extend the hand of fellow- 
ship, greeting, and hospitality. What may grow out of it 



45 6 Thomas Kilby Smith 

all I cannot say or even hope, perhaps, as in the past, nothing 
tangible, nothing material. It may be only the lip service 
of honor with no substantial meaning, but there is a gratifi- 
cation in the sweet incense that nothing else can equal and 
that might turn the head of a less grave man. St. Paul is a 
beautiful and opulent city, with the purest atmosphere I 
have ever breathed, more rarified than that of California. 
Last night, returning to my lodgings, I suffered with cold; 
to-day the people are going about with their overcoats that 
are comfortable. The twilight lasts till nine o'clock in the 
evening. I am charmed with the place. Of all these things 
and places and people I have laid up stores of incidents to 
detail to you on my return, and now, my dear sister, with 
the vague idea I have conveyed of my locus in gico, of my 
health and spirits, with the assumed probability of my early 
return, let me make some answer to your sweet letter of 
June 5th, that I found with one from Walter of even date 
awaiting my arrival here. You tell me that you are glad 
that I have been admitted to the Communion in the Catholic 
Church. I will not say that I am surprised to know that 
you are glad, for I know your sound, practical common- 
sense judgment in matters of religion, because I know that 
5'^ou possess no bigoted feeling of repulsion towards a faith 
that under your eyes and in your own most intimate com- 
munion has made the lives of those you most love on earth 
pure and holy. I have taken a step, perhaps the most im- 
portant for life or eternity, with full consciousness and 
mature deliberation, and with the conviction that for me 
there was but one step between the Catholic Church and in- 
fidelity, that I either moved forward or backward, that I 
could not long remain as I was. I do not desire to be mis- 
understood by my family or those friends who might take 
an interest in the matter. I do not claim to have received a 
change of heart, an experience of religion, or any strong 
revulsion of feeling usually understood as convej^ed in the 
cant religious expressions of the day. I have made profes- 
sion of the faith based upon the creed taught me at our 
mother's knee. I have received the holiest Sacrament of the 
Church, that if any is true, is the one true Church. I pray 



Letters 457 

that God may give me grace to have perfect faith. There 
has been no violent emotion of mind, I have been as an 
infant might be Hfted to a cradle of peace. My course seems 
plain before me, and though I know, oh, how well, the force 
of all you say, that there are ills in life, there are times 
when our souls are tried and our faith well-nigh lost, yet I 
feel now quite at ease. The Church is right, I have enlisted 
under her banner, I have only to keep my place in her ranks 
and press forward in the march of life. Between us, you and 
me, there can be no difference ; we can breathe the same 
prayer for the influence of that Holy Mystery that no human 
mind can conceive, to which all things temporal are less 
than atoms in the sunbeam. 

I cannot now write, as I am at the Headquarters of the 
Army, surrounded by officers and the bustle of business ; at 
some future time I will express myself more freely and at 
greater length. Put from your heart and mind all appre- 
hension, all repugnance. We have the same God, the same 
Saviour, the same Holy Spirit. Let us pray for the same 
grace. 

To-morrow I go to Dakota Territory to the source of the 
Red River of the North. If you look upon the map you may 
be able to discover the little lake whence the great river 
takes its rise and some fifty miles beyond Fort Abercrombie. 



Somerset Ci,ub, Boston, 

Saturda}', Nov. 24, 1877. 
My dear Boy: 

I am here in Boston . . . Heretofore courtesies have 
been extended to me, but never before so bountifully as now ; 
cards came to me at my hotel and invitations without number 
at the club. 



Two or three nights since, returning to my caravansary, I 
found a warm invitation to an anniversary dinner of the 
' ' Grand Army of the Republic. ' ' Coming from a source that 
I must respect, I deemed it proper to at once go in person to 
offer my regrets. It was impossible to get off, I was at once 



458 Thomas Kilby Snuth 

seized, and having been introduced to many of an hundred 
guests, upon the arm of the commander, was assigned to the 
seat of honor. Facing me at the end of one of the two 
tables that formed the hollow square was the Secretary of 
State ; at his right hand sat the Collector of the Port, one 
Simmons of Butler fame, next to him Oliver Wendell 
Holmes, then Squires, and so on and so on, with soldiers of 
the regular army, men of rank and note, etc. , etc. A splen- 
did spread, good food and rare wines, and as the cloth was 
removed an eloquent address from the commander at my 
left premising the first regular toast of the evening, of course 
the ' ' President of the United States, ' ' and, to my profound 
astonishment, a call upon me to respond. To that moment 
I had no expectation of speaking, except perhaps in a gen- 
eral way, and certainly no reason to expect a call to speak 
to a regular toast, and to that one which at this time and 
before such an assemblage as I found before me, certainly 
demanded some consideration and mature deliberation. For- 
tunately, I had just read Noyes's speech in full at the Paris 
dinner to Grant, and was fresh from a discussion of Grant 
and Hayes with General Gordon that very day, so that my 
mind was drifting in the right channel for the occasion. I 
made a good speech, a better one, I think, than I ever made 
before. That is not saying much, but I found out long 
before I sat down that I had my audience, and more than 
once I took them completely oflf their feet. Avoiding per- 
sonality, I made Grant the embodiment of a grand idea, and 
made him the realization of that idea, as an exponent to the 
nations of the earth of the young Republic yet in her swad- 
dling clothes. I took Hayes by the hand from the time he 
left the wilderness of the West till he was hammered out at 
Cambridge and fitted for the conflict of life. 

The first day of my arrival dined with Judge Woodbury, 
the next with the " Grand Army," last evening with the 
ex-Chief-Justice Bigelow, declining two dinners, one an in- 
vitation from Mr. Brooks. Yesterday I lunched with the 
present Chief-Justice Grey, a man who stands six feet four 
in his stockings. To-night I dine with Mr. Appleton, who 



Letters 459 

is the brother-in-law of Professor Longfellow, whose son is 
invited to meet me. To-morrow I lunch with Mr. Otis, the 
grandson of Harrison Grey Otis, and to-morrow night I 
dine with Mr. Sydney Brooks. 

Palmer House, Chicago, 

Sunday, Nov. i6, 1879. 
My dear Son : 

From the journals of the day, for I presume the Eastern 
papers will republish from here, you must learn the wonder- 
ful events of the past week in this wonderful city. My ex- 
perience in popular assemblages all my life has been large 
and varied, particularly since the war. I have seen the 
best cities at their best, but I have seen nothing that com- 
pares with numbers and strength and character combined, 
such as have gathered here. Nor can I hope in a letter to 
convey to you the impressions and ideas that from their 
contemplation throng my mind. I have been invited and 
urged to go hence to Washington, and believe I should be 
made welcome. But I do not desire to mingle in a crowd, 
even of the gallant soldiers that will be there, and it would 
not be fitting that I should be made to take a conspicuous 
place before the survivors of the Armj- of the Cumberland. 
Here it has been different. Kind fortune gave me the honor 
of being one ot the trusted in the early struggles of the 
Army of the Tennessee ; my command kept me at the front 
of its battles. I was favored at the close of its first fierce 
fight with the friendship of General Sherman, warm and un- 
shaken to this day. In its darkest hours, before the dawn- 
ing of the splendid sunlight of its crowning victory at Vicks- 
burg, I was admitted to the confidence and councils of 
him who to-day stands before the whole world as its foremost 
Captain, the foremost Captain among the soldiers of the 
world. Here in Chicago were enlisted many regiments that 
were grouped under my command, and which by the grace 
of God I led through fire and flood and privation and suffer- 
ing to the bitter end of a horrible war. The names of their 
mighty dead are high up on the roll of honor. I have found 



460 Thomas Kilby Smith 

more than compensation for all my own suffering and sacriiSce 
in standing by the side of Grant and amid the vast host that 
were gathered to do him homage, to give him welcome, to 
be able to greet in not a few of the upturned faces, as their 
procession passed in review, a glance of glad recognition 
from their heroic survivors. I know in this hour that my 
name is familiar at their firesides and in the mouths of their 
children. I know that Chicago has given me welcome, and 
that her citizens have felt proud that I should take standing 
place near the very pinnacle of glory she has erected for him 
so great in the estimation of myriads of men. I care not to 
descend just now to mingle with the throng that will swell 
the chorus of the dirge to Thomas. Still I was strongly 
tempted to accept Sherman's invitation to accompany him 
back, and though my engagements will keep me here for a 
day or two longer, I may go to Washington " as a looker on 
in Vienna. ' ' 

It is vain, my dear son, that I strive to finish this letter, 
constant interruptions break the thread of my attempted 
narrative, and obscure my line of thought. I don't know 
that I shall be able even to tell you when we meet any more 
of my own share in the exciting events of the past week ; 
within the hour I shall join the Commandery of the Loyal 
Legion here at their invitation to a reception and lunch 
tendered by them to General Grant. The reception will be 
held at the Chicago Club. General Sheridan has tendered 
me horses and escort to look over the city. " Sandy," 
General George Forsyth, and others of his staff have been 
very polite. 

Grant looks very well, and has borne himself well through- 
out all this affair. Sheridan is very sick, and seems to be 
breaking up. This is a wonderful place. Business men are 
in high spirits. There are nine millions of bushels of wheat 
in the elevators here ; orders for manufactured goods cannot 
be filled. Wednesday brought in seventy-five thousand 
people. 



Letters 461 

Hyde Park on the Hudson, 

Sunday, , 1880. 

My dear Son: 

I had a most charming interview with General Hancock, 
to whom you will pay your respects at some convenient 
season not far away. . . I am the guest of my friend, 
Governor Dorsheimer. I cannot describe to you what a per- 
fectly lovely place his is. My window commands one of 
the most striking views of the Highlands of the Hudson so 
celebrated in song and story. All around is superb prospect 
of hill and valley, rich in leafy trees and smiling verdure, 
the river winding away dotted with sails. Mansions and 
cottages nestled here and there, long and broad avenues 
bounded by lofty elms and hedge-rows, giving in their curves 
constant surprises as they open to the parterre or the lake. 
But why essay anything to bring your fancy hither ; only 
imagine a country selected hundreds of years ago by opulent 
patroons for picturesque loveliness, and inhabited for genera- 
tions by the wealthy who have in each succession of family 
exhausted every resource of taste and the best efforts of the 
landscape gardener to develop what nature has so lavishly 
spread. 

New York, Sept. i, 1880. 

To-morrow morning at nine o'clock I start for Colorado 
in company with Governor Dorsheimer. This journey is 
not political. ... I may return a week from next 
Saturday, but, as usual, my movements will be uncertain, 
governed by daily events, so you need never fear for me. 

You may regard General Hancock's election as un fait 
accompli. I shall probably be regarded as one who had some 
hand in it. 

Pueblo, Colo., Sept. 5, 1880. 

We arrived here this evening at 2.30 after a not very 
eventful but most interesting journey from New York that 



462 Thomas Kilby Smith 

we left Thursday morning at 9 a.m. . . This part of the 
continent I have never traversed, and to me the superb culti- 
vated plateau of Kansas which with its highly cultivated 
farms and vast herding grounds for cattle, and the desert 
sage wilderness of Colorado was continuous delight merg- 
ing into the sublime as the Spanish peak and Pike's Peak 
loomed upon the horizon. Pueblo is an old, very old Span- 
ish town, now Americanized, with a population of 7500. 
The aspect of the place is simply horrid, though the air is 
pure, and notwithstanding the excessive heat, the place is 
healthy. 



Pueblo, Colo., Sept. 6, 1880. 

If you look on your map, you will find Pueblo. It is a 
very old Spanish town, now Americanized. Its altitude 
above the level of the sea, or " Torresdale," is 4679 feet ; 
the air so rarified that in going fast I feel its effects upon 
my lungs, its population about six thousand, the largest city 
in Southern Colorado ; it lies about one hundred and twenty 
miles south of Denver, and is reached by the Atchison, 
Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and by the Denver and Rio 
Grande road. From this point the Atchison, Topeka and 
Santa Fe road branches to the East and the Carson City 
Branch of the Denver and Rio Grande to the West. The 
Arkansas River runs through the city, separating it from 
South Pueblo ; North and South Pueblo it is called. This 
afternoon I shall leave for Silver Cliff, and from thence or 
thereabouts, take horse or mule and penetrate the mountain 
regions far away from civilization. As I write, the mountain 
ranges of the Rockies loom up in the landscape, and above 
them all to the eastward Pike's Peak, wrapped in his mantle 
of eternal snow. The weather here is perfectly charming at 
this season of the year. The winds sweep freely over the 
broad savannahs. For hundreds of miles we passed through 
the Great American Desert, with its cactus and sage brush 
and arid alkaline soil. The people here have been very 
polite. lyast evening a serenade of beautiful music was 



Letters 



463 



given us. I delivered a speech in eulogy of your friend, 
General Hancock, and was followed by Governor Dorsheimer 
on the state of the Union. ... I have eaten antelope, 
but have not yet seen any live ones. I have seen wild cats 
and puma or South American lion, in a cage, however, and 
the most beautiful golden eagle. As yet game has been 
scarce with me, but this is not the season. 




The following study of the character of General Smith 
was prepared by his second son, Theodore Dehon Smith, 
known in religion as the Rev. Father Maurice, a priest of 
the congregation of the Passionists, who died in Buenos 
Ayres, South America, February 15, 1894. It was intended 
for publication as an article in a magazine, but has been 
withheld until this time. It presents the views of an affec- 
tionate son of his father's character, and is thought to have 
an interest that makes it worthy of publication. 



465 






GENERAI. THOMAS KILBY SMITH. 

" Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their gen- 
eration." — Eccles. xliv., I. 

AS we grow farther and farther away from the great Civil 
War, its events and the actors in them become shadowy 
and unreal. It is the heroic age of the Republic. The men 
and the times stand out before the mental vision like mediae- 
val pictures. In vain are written eloquent narratives and 
authentic memoirs by those who themselves were a part of 
the scenes they describe ; in vain are books and papers and 
pamphlets sent out from the press, the sons of the people are 
dull of hearing, the heart of the nation has ceased to beat 
responsive to the once familiar call of the bugle and roll of 
the drum. Occasionally that brilliant past that made the 
present possible is brought once more before us with some- 
thing of the old-time force ; some battle-flag, torn and tat- 
tered by the musket-ball, with the bloodstains of its braves 
fading into the colors his dying eye lit up to see, is removed 
from its dust-covered bin, — the mighty chieftain of so many 
armies dies amid the pine trees falling like some lofty cedar 
with a crash that resounds through the forest, — but in a 
moment the apathy returns as the stillness resumes its usual 
sway. Grant has gone into song and story. He is already 
idealized. He and his generals are almost as far back to us 
as Charlemagne and his paladins, as Napoleon and his 
marshals, as Washington and the generals of his earlier 
days. Is this the fate of men and nations ? Is this the re- 
ward that awaits all who give themselves to the service of 
mankind ? Is this the vanity of human things, that the 
Wise Man speaks of? Ah, no ; not so. To the Christian 

467 



468 Thomas Kilby Smith 

eye to the eye of faith, the lives of persons and of peoples are 
indestructible portions of an eternal plan, by which they will 
be judged, and according to which with unerring justice and 
unfailing truth, every man will be rewarded according to his 
works. The world may forget the virtues of its heroes, but 
God does not forget them. And no one who has done his 
part to illustrate that dear humanity so wonderfully created, 
so still more wonderfully redeemed, shall remain unrecom- 
pensed. But the fame, and the honor, and the glory, " the 
report that exalts the character, the renown that ever>' true 
soldier courts, and has a right to court ' ' will be given in 
good measure, and pressed down and shaken together, run- 
ning over, to all. To the statesman who gave his life that 
good government might not perish from the earth, to the 
general oflScer who in comparison with the love of country 
held life cheap, to the private soldier whose humble tomb 
tells this tale, " he died nobly contending for the right." 
There are besides the saints spiritual, saints political. For, 
indeed, the attributes of God are imaged in the economy of 
the State as in that of the Church. Dr. Brownson has said, 
that they are no less martyrs of truth who die on the battle- 
field in defence of true government, than they who die in 
witnessing the faith. But though we may console ourselves 
with such considerations for the inevitable transition that 
will cause our own selves to be forgotten, it is none the less 
our duty to avoid the truthlessness of the unthinking major- 
ity of men, and to commemorate with due reverence and 
respect the benefits we confess to have received from our 
fathers in their generation, the men of renown who one by 
one are falling into their graves. 

In the number of these we would fain place the subject of 
this sketch. General Thomas Kilby Smith, whose death is 
chronicled under date of the 14th of last December, was as 
firm a patriot and as upright a man as any of those who fol- 
lowed the flag. Among the very first to answer the appeal 
to arms, he recruited a regiment and rose successively to the 
command of a brigade, a division, and a militar)- depart- 
ment. Whilst acting as Chief of Staff" to General Grant, he 
enjo5^ed the close confidence of that commander ; and the 



A Study of Character. 469 

veteran, Sherman, has testified to the esteem in which he 
held him. Like Scammon and Rosecrans — and we wish we 
could say like Sherman, — General Smith was a convert to 
Catholicism. And, like them, he had a son who became a 
priest, whose consolation it has been to repeat the dear and 
honored name of his father at the altar, and to offer the 
prayer of Holy Church at his grave, ' ' that he who on earth 
had been united in faith to the congregation of believers, in 
Heave lI may be associated with the angelic chorus." 

Doubtless, the mind of a man thoroughly identified in 
heart and hope and sympathy with what are termed secular 
affairs, did not always bend promptly to the teachings of re- 
ligion. Doubtless, a lifetime of association with non-Catho- 
lics, and in the exercise of that private judgment upon all 
matters under the sun, which they count as their choicest 
prerogative, and which he was well fitted to enjoy (if there 
can be any transient joy in the pursuit of intellectual chi- 
meras), may have disposed him to moments of doubt and dis- 
trust. But the knowledge and the wisdom which must come 
in the train of so wide an experience of so cultivated a soul, 
convinced him of the necessity of revelation ; and the ques- 
tion of authority that followed was easily solved. To those 
who have heard him converse, it is not necessary to say, 
how nature had gifted him with some of the choicest quali- 
ties that can be bestowed upon body or soul. He had the 
most beautiful, delightful, kindling enthusiasm upon every 
great subject of debate. He had what Newman says of 
Hurrell Froude, that sure hold upon certain prime and 
moving principles which made him utterly careless of conse- 
quences. The intimate society and habitual intercourse with 
the best minds of the day gave an additional impetus to the 
natural force and dignity of his character. The late Rev. 
Dr. White, Pastor of St. Matthew's at "Washington, the late 
Most Rev. Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati, the Very Rev. 
Vicar General Preston of New York, were clergymen whom 
he knew and esteemed. By the second of them, in 1872, he 
was received into the Communion of the Church. If then, 
after thirty or forty years of the widest and freest specula- 
tion, he found it difficult to think as we all tried to teach 



470 Thomas Kilby Smith 

him to think, who will be surprised ? ' ' You cannot teach 
me," he wrote to his son, naturally anxious at witnessing 
some of his mental vagaries, " I studied Brownson before 
you were born." " I dare say you did," hiunbly replied 
the young man, who was most often worsted in such en- 
counters. ' ' But, ' ' added the elder, with instant recognition 
of the filial deference paid, " probably not with as much 
profit to myself." Nevertheless, however his friends may 
regret the free vein he was accustomed to give to his mind, 
they have no reason to blush for his conduct. In the uni- 
versal license of camp and court, he remained unsullied. A 
proverb amongst his companions for a gentleness and truth 
worthy of knighthood, as for valor that was dubbed chival- 
rous. It was characteristic of him to take his sons, even of 
tender years, to be with him at all times, at the mess table 
during active service, to his various resorts of pleasure or 
occupation during the long period of his retirement. " I 
never say anything I am ashamed for my children to htar ' ' 
was his explanation on this point. There is no one but can 
profit by the significance of the remark. Such a character 
as this will repay study. What was it that brought so lofty 
a spirit in subjection to Catholic faith ? The world had a 
mighty attraction for him. But it never filled his heart or 
kept him from experiencing those large desires that make 
every finite pleasure a disappointment and a pain. He 
would have what the present condition of things has to offer 
in the way of joy and consolation, because he thought that 
the effort required to obtain it was a manly and becoming 
exertion of strength. It would be folly, also, to pretend that 
the high aims and ideals he cherished were so absolutely 
single to truth and justice as to be without some trace of 
self-interest. But that he lived to realize the vanity of 
earthly power and of passing delight there is no room to 
doubt. Then, too, without perhaps being conscious of it, 
he was carried along by that reactionary spirit in the Ameri- 
can Protestant Church against the stem traditions of the 
Puritan Fathers, which has been so often and so ably de- 
scribed in the pages of this Review. He hated Calvinism. 
But it was nearly all that he knew for many years of the 



A Study of Character. 471 

Christian religion. For he was born of Protestant parents 
in Boston, nearly seventy years ago. It is this which will 
explain his apparent indocility to Catholic inspiration upon 
a certain occasion. One of his sons already referred to, re- 
ceived a religious vocation. Enamored of the preaching of 
the famous Paulist, James Kent Stone, he followed that 
eminent divine into the stricter observance of the Passionists. 
This was a sensible grief to the father, who opposed the 
movement as long and as well as he fairly could, using every 
lawful and decorous means of hindrance that were in his 
power. He disliked the doctrine of human depravity, and 
he had a right to dislike it, because it had been taught him 
improperly. He did not understand that of Christian self- 
denial, of which the religious life is a consequence, because 
for so long it had never been taught to him at all. 

" You wish," he wrote, " to darken this world so good, 
so beautiful, to deprive it of all its sheen, its glitter, and its 
gloss. . . . You despise those things that precede, ac- 
company, and follow every man from his birth." Thus for 
long he struggled against the sacrifice that God demanded 
of him. But in his better moments, and ultimately, he 
lowered his strong heart to the inevitable, and kissed the 
Divine Hand that chastened him. Few can read without 
emotion such words as these that follow : 

" My dear Son : 

" It is a good while since we had any commune, nearly a 
year since we met, and then I thought we should never 
again meet in this world. No day passes that you are not in 
my mind. I never close my eyes to sleep that I do not make 
my prayer for you. My dear, dear boy. It is all so strange 
to me. My cross is heaviei than I can bear. At times I 
falter, and my heart is broken. Never let one doubt of my 
love for you cross your mind, never for one moment suppose 
that I am now or ever have been hurt or angry with you, or 
that I have suffered from disappointment at the course you 
have chosen to pursue. If you are happy in this world, my 
prayers are answered ; if in your vocation you can confer 
happiness on others, I am more than content. But little is 



472 Thomas Kilby Smith 

left to me. I am almost ready to lay my burden down. I 
have tried life in all its phases, — now for that undiscovered 
country from whose bourne no traveller returns. . . , 
God has been abundant in blessing me, and if He has clothed 
me with aflQiction as with a garment, it too, doubtless, has 
been a blessing in disguise. . . . On . . . now all 
our hopes rest. He is our stay for troubles that are upon us 
as a sea, and for others that we wot not of. Pray for his 
physical health. In mind he is mighty, with a strong heart 
and high courage. Never doubt, never forget me, but know 
that I am always with faith and dearest love, 

' ' Your afifectionate father. ' ' 

Such words as these do not fall from the lips of sceptics. 
And when we know that he had complied with the precepts 
of Holy Church in regard to the reception of the Sacraments 
previous to his death, and that in that fatal moment he was 
conscious, and that, together with his family, he had at his 
bedside the ever ready, ever zealous, ever generous Jesuit, 
who can doubt that the grace of God which had followed him 
all his life, descended upon him then, to remain with him 
forever ? Cast thy bread upon the waters, for after a long 
time thou shalt find it again. That dear friend, that 
honored father was not allowed to die alone. The brave 
and gallant soldier, whose very enemies loved him and had 
reason to love him, was surrounded by the prayers of those 
whom he had loved. In all parts of the Union he fought to 
preserve, there were those who remembered his soul before 
God. The citizens of Mississippi, whose property he pre- 
served from the heedless soldiery ; the citizens of Massachu- 
setts, among whom he was born ; dwellers in Philadelphia, 
the city of his adoption ; New York, the city of his love, and 
far off by the banks of the Ohio, where sleep the nameless 
dead — no, not nameless — the beloved 54th. Ever reticent, 
ever modest, ever self-controlled, the half of his benefactions 
will never be known. He was strong to protect the weak. 
Whether in behalf of a downtrodden race, as when he stood 
by the side of the afterwards great Chief-Justice Chase, to 
receive the obloquy of a pro-slavery mob, or when from his 



A Study of Character. 473 

headquarters at Mobile lie reported to the Secretary of War 
in behalf of the efl&cient negro soldiers, — or whether it were 
in defence of a proscribed religion, as when he married in 
the heat of the Know-Nothing rage, a Catholic wife, his arm 
was always raised to shield the unprotected from violence 
and to help the losing side. When the South was swept by 
the tide of invasion, it was to such as he that she looked not 
in vain for consideration for the vanquished. ' ' War has its 
laws, ' ' he told his soldiers, ' ' as well as peace. Save by mili- 
tary rule, the rights of person and property are sacred — 
sacred here as near your peaceful homes in the Far West. 
Remember, it is not women and children nor States upon 
whom the Government is making war. . . . It is for the 
soldiers of the Government who have perilled their lives and 
pledged their fortunes and honor for the maintenance of law 
and order, to set an example to those who have sought to 
overturn all and bring anarchy and confusion upon the 
land. To teach them that in the proud consciousness of 
power and victory we can exercise a wise and just forbear- 
ance." By such regulations as these the acrimony of the 
conflict was softened, the fury of war abated. To use his 
own exquisite, high-flown diction, it was " to march with 
the sword in one hand and the olive branch in the other, ' ' 
Sectional animosity gave place to human kindness. And 
when such dispositions prevail, there is no circumstance of 
life more favorable to the display of the natural virtues dear 
to God and man than the theatre of mortal combat. Charity 
descends upon the battlefield to cover its ghastly horrors 
with the mantle of holy love. The virtues of nature are in- 
deed in a most true sense holy. They never go unrewarded. 
They sometimes meet with a higher than natural recompense. 
A great soldier, whose feats of arms are the applause of the 
world, once gave his canteen to an exhausted foe, made 
prisoner by his troops. Years after, his dreary exile was 
consoled by grateful testimonials from the relatives of the 
man whose life had thus been saved. But of this same one 
it is recorded, in language of incomparable eloquence : ' ' The 
hand that was wont to countersign victory was extended to 
a Sister of Charity." Of this last object of condescension, 



474 Thomas Kilby Sryiith 

the friends and relatives had neither silver nor gold, but 
may we not suppose, that what they had they gave ? In 
the silence and the solitude that broods over the ocean's vast 
expanse there came to the mind so long engaged in the 
world's affairs the thought of the eternal God. Was this 
the gift of an excellent nature, or the result of abounding 
grace ? We may be pardoned if we think it was grace 
given in answer to prayer. Prayer offered in grateful ac- 
knowledgment of an act ot clemency to the friends of 
religious truth. 

Our modest hero would disclaim all share in this compari- 
son, except with regard to this last. In the times when al- 
most every Union general was a ruler and a prince, his 
brief authority extended even to the domains of Holy 
Church. With all his respect for civil rights, it may be 
doubted if his acquaintance was very accurate with the 
law Ecclesiastical. He had shown but slight consideration 
for the scruples of certain dignitaries upon other occasions. 
But when, in 1864, in distant Louisiana, he found himself 
the de facto head of the temporalities belonging to a commun- 
ity of nuns, inasmuch as he was monarch of river and shore, 
his heart came to the help of his mind and he did for these 
helpless and destitute victims of conquest all that its gener- 
ous promptings suggested. They had no reason to complain 
of the rigor of martial law. Like that of the ancient king, 
it was not made for such as they. The edge of the sword 
was not turned against them, but against all who should 
venture to molest them. The convent ' was sacred from 
every invasion of its privacy by a detachment of his men, 
and from the camp of this considerate aggressor were fur- 
nished the sorely needed supplies and provisions of all kinds. 
In the impoverishment of that stricken territory, the Re- 
ligious found better fare in this instance amongst their foes 
than their own friends could have offered them. " Deign to 
render, O Lord, unto all those who have done good to us for 
Thy Name's sake, life eternal." These courtesies of war 
probably cost the Federal officer little. They profited him 
much. Let it be recorded to the honor of religion, that 
' The convent of the Sacred Heart near Alexandria, I^a. 



A Study of Character. 475 

these faithful disciples of the Catholic Church, which itself 
knew no North and no South, never forgot to return a hun- 
dredfold the little they had received. In their beautiful 
convent homes all over a re-united and peaceful land, their 
whilom benefactor, he and his, the living and the dead, have 
found rest and peace, and one of them a quiet grave. And 
not only so, for we are sure that to them in great part he 
was indebted for the grace of conversion, and finally for the 
grace of a happy death. 

The mortal remains of the once proud soldier lay in state 
in a room in his own house. There, together with the 
insignia of his earthly rank and short-lived glory, was 
placed the symbol of peace eternal. And as the image 
of the Crucified looked down on the laurel and steel, 
and the son sang the funeral dirge over all that was left 
of the father, the countenance of the dead man reposed 
in ineffable calm. Surely, if ever the infinite attributes 
of a merciful God shone forth from the human face divine, 
they were to be seen here. Those features which were 
once so mobile, — ^which erstwhile were as stern as fate, 
or, again, as sweet as summer, rested now in aspect of con- 
templation. The brows, slightly elevated, communicated to 
the whole an expression of wisdom which the closed eyes 
could not contradict. It was only a deserted tenement, a 
shell, a mould of clay. But it had been the habitation of an 
immortal soul. We have no right to judge. We dare not 
say. The end no man can see. But may we not hope that 
the indomitable spirit which had so often looked forth from 
beneath those lids with determination to find in the world its 
counterpart of valor and of love, in the moment of its depart- 
ure saw the vanity of that desire and mused upon its own 
mistake, — gazed into the immediate future, saw the glory of 
the coming of the world that was to be, and left stamped 
upon that which had been for so long the mirror of its 
motions the virtues of its final satisfaction and content. 

General Smith is not buried at Spring Grove with his old 
regiment, nor at Greenwood near the busy mart whose 
active life he loved to share, nor at Laurel Hill, where rest 
many of the illustrious of his compeers. In the humble con- 



47^ Thomas Kilby Smith 

viction of his family and of many of his friends, he rests 
where the mysterious presence of God upon earth is more 
palpably evident than in any of these. They have laid the 
body of the soldier near the Body of the Christian's Lord. 
He, whose arm in life was raised in defence of what he be- 
lieved to be true authority, in death has taken up his station 
to bear witness to the same good cause. Obedient to every 
detail of Catholic ritual, he lies in the Catholic burying- 
ground of his own parish. 

' ' But, ' ' it was said, ' ' even if he had died on the field of 
battle, his followers would have distinguished his remains 
from those of others. They would have wrapped his cloak 
about him, and put him in a place apart. ' ' And so it is now. 
Upon a gentle eminence, quite near the sanctuary, his grave 
overlooks those of all the rest who are buried there. It is 
the last bivouac. The warrior again mounts guard. He 
defends the Holy Sepulchre. He has stationed his outposts 
and picketed his men. And here he has pitched his tent. 
It will not any more be unfolded until the trumpet shall 
sound and the dead shall arise. When, upon the morning 
of that tremendous day, he goes to respond to the dread 
summons to render his account, God grant that the good 
works he has done may follow him, and that thus may come 
to pass the saying that is written ' ' Death is swallowed up in 
victory." 

THE END 





INDEX 



Adams, Charles Francis, 4 
Adams, John, 3, 4 
Adams, John Quincy, 3, 4 
Adriatic, steamer, 98 
Albatross, gunboat, 317, 318 
Albert, Col., 102 

Alexandria, 87, 89, 93, 95. io7, 
no. III, 114, 116, 126, 129-131, 
133-141, 317, 359. 361, 365 
Alice Vivian, steamer, 102, 103, 
106 

Allan Co., O., 78 

Ammon's Bridge, 23, 228, 229 

America, steamer, 303 

Andrew, Capt., loi 

Appier, J. J., Col., 12 

Appomattox, 146 

Arizona, gunboat, 316, 321 

Arkadelphia, 138 

Arkansas Post, 30-32, 59, 62, 63, 
66, 78, 159. 258, 261, 266, 273, 
275, 284, 286, 315, 333 

Arkansas River, 32, 108, 258, 262 

Armenia, steamer, 304 

Armory, 3. 9. ^^ , , , 

Army of the Cumberland, 152, 

459 
Army of the James, 365 
Army of the Ohio, 16, 18 
Army of the Mississippi, 254, 268, 

269 ; Confederate, 14 
Army of the Potomac, 77. 240, 

366, 379 
Army of the Tennessee, 12, 13, 

17, 81, 89, 119, 126, I37> 143. 

146, 152, 160, 236, 336, 459 
Artesa, 84 
Asbury, N. J., 8 
Aspinwall, 415 



Astor, John Jacob, 284 
Atchafalaya, 90; river, 112, 138, 

357) 359 
Atlanta, 79, 94, 124, 131, 142 
Auburn, 46 
Auglaize Co., O., 78 
Autocrat, steamer, 90 
Avoyelles, 91, 357 

B 

Bache, Commander, 107 

Bailey, Admiral, 411 

Bailey, Joseph, Lieut.-Col., m, 

137 
Baker's Creek, 157 
Ball, Flaman, 6 

Banks, Nathaniel P., Gen., 26, 
29, 71, 72, 74. 76, 77, 85-88, 93- 
96, loi, 102, 104, 108, 110-117, 
119, 120, 124-127, 130, 131, 133. 
134, 139. 141. 159. 197, 214, 218, 
311, 315, 316, 319. 320, 328, 330- 
332, 334, 336, 355, 359. 361 
Barbin's Landing, 141 
Barrett, S. E., Capt., 4^-48, 54 
Barton, J. A., Corp., 45 
Baton Rouge, 92, 387 
Baxter Bayou, 33 
Bayou Boeuf, 121 
Bayou Cotile, 129 
Bayou de Glaize, 91 
Bayou L'Eglise, 357 
Bayou Pierre, 97, 117 
Bayou Rapide, 93 
Bayou Sara, 141 

Beale, William, Gen., C.S.A.,320 
Bear Creek, 73 
Beattie, Major, 312 
Beauregard, Gen., 17, 18 
Behr, Frederick, Capt., 12 



477 



478 



Index 



Ben Franklin, steamer, 184 

Benton, gunboat, 92, 359 

Benton villa. Pa., 79 

Berwick Bay, 88 

Bienville, U. S. S., 385 

Big Black River, 72, 78, 138, 159 

Bigelow, Judge, 410, 458 

Black Bayou, 35 

Black Hawk, steamer, 39, 69, 90, 

92, 99, 102, 103, 117, 316, 357, 

358 
Black River, 40, 83, 138, 141, 160, 

333, 345, 346, 355, 377 
Blair, Francis P., Jr., Gen., 37, 
40, 43-47, 50-52, 283, 289-291, 

Blair's Division, 39, 40 

Blair's Landing, 113, 117 

Blair's Plantation, 106 

Blake, Congressman, 170 

Blakely, 386 

Blanden, Leander, Lieut.-Col., 81 

Bolton, 46 

Boston, Mass., 1-3, 56, 150, 158, 

457 
Boyce's Plantation, 121 
Boyington, A. J., Lieut., 99 
Boylston, Thomas, 4 
Bragg, Braxton, Gen., 210, 225, 

234, 240, 244 
Brashear City, 316 
Breckenridge, John C, Gen., 218, 

23S 
Brevoort, family, 284 
Bridgeport, 40 
Bridge, S. J., Gen., 2 
Brooks, Sydney, 459 
Brown Co., O., 331 
Brown, David Paul, 151 
Brownson, Dr., 468, 470 
Brownsville, 88 
Bruinsburg, 38 
Brunswick, i 
Budd, George D., 4 
Buchanan, President, 
Buckland, R. P., Col., 12, 20 
Buckstone Landing, 141 
Buell, Don Carlos, Gen., 18, 21, 

197, 234, 240, 244 
Bull Run, ID, II 
Burge, Col., 320 
Burnett, Col., 183 
Burnett House, Cincinnati, 167 
Butler Co., O., 78 
Butler, Gen., 365-367 
Butler's Ditch, 266 
Butte La Rose, La., 316 



Cairo, 111., 192, 330, 332, 387 
Calef, Hannah, i 
Calef, Joseph, i 
Calhoun, no 
California, 8 
Camden, 112, 138 
Campbell, James, Postmaster- 
General, 9 
Camp Dennison, 10, 172-184, 377 
Campti, La., 99, 100, 104, 109, 

115, 125, 140, 141 

Canby, Kdward R. S., Gen., 112, 

116, 122, 123, 145, 147, 339, 395, 
404, 406 

Cane River, no, 127, 129, 140 

Canso, Nova Scotia, 3 

Canton, Miss., 354 

Carle, Charles, Surgeon, 90, 140 

Carncross, Captain, 343 

Carnifex Ferry, Va., 278 

Carol! t! a, gunboat, 316 

Carroll's Plantation, 94 

Casco Ba}', i 

Caspiana, 141 

Cass, Gen., 284, 391 

Catholic Sisters, 278, 421 

Cayuga, 46 

Champion Hills, 40, 78, 84, 160 

Chandler, Lieut.-Col., 53 

Charleston, S. C, 294, 329 

Chase, Miss Kate, 171 

Chase, Salmon P., 6, 11, 66-68, 

158, 171, 309, 406, 411, 412, 472 
Chateau d'Eu, France, 155 
Chattanooga, 79, 120 
Chewalla, 217 
Chicago, 459, 460 
Chickasas Bluffs, 272, 285, 394 
Chickasaw Bayou, 29, 32, 33, 39, 

59, 61, 66, 78, 159, 228, 261, 266, 

267, 284, 333, 347 
Chillicothe, gunboat, 99 
Chisum, Col., 120 
Churchill, Gen., 20 
Cincinnati, Ohio, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 

59, 151, 167, 181, 192, 206, 234, 

240, 244, 250, 331 
City of Madison, steamer, 327 
City Point, 143, 364, 365 
Clara Bell, steamer, 97-99, 102- 

104 
Clark, W. T., Gen., 342 
Clarkesville, 373 
Clifton, Ohio, 179 
Clifton, steamer, 316 



Index 



479 



Clifton, Tenn., 143, 375-377 
Cloutierville, no, Ii6, 121, 127, 

140 
Cockerill, J. R,, 13, 14, 392 
Coldwater, 24, 239 
Coleraine Township, Ohio, 5 
College Hill, Miss., 24 
Colonel Cowles, gunboat, 99 
Colorado, 461, 462 
Columbus, Tenn., 228 
Commercial, Cincinnati, 244, 274 
Committee, Conduct of the War, 

160, 379 
Committee, National Democratic, 

10 
Comte de Paris, 155 
Conemaugh River, 144 
Conness, Senator, 439 
Constitution Hill, 4 
Corinth, 13, 14, 18, 21, 22, 59, 61, 

63, 159, 192, 200-202, 209-212, 

214, 225, 228, 229, 244, 245, 275, 

2S4, 333 
Cotille, no 
Court of Claims, 152 
Coushatta Point, 100, 106, 113, 120 
Coushatta Chute, 100, loi, 141 
Crescent City Guards, 197, 228 
Cressley, Geo. W., Maj., 83 
Cresson, Pa., 144 
Crocker, M. M., Gen., 82, 83, 342 
Cricket, Flagship, 107, 129, 362 
Cumberland Gap, 2, 344 ; river, 

371-376 
Curtiss, Gen., 234 
Curtiss, F. S., Maj., 54 
Cushing, Caleb, Hon., 453 
Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, 78 



D 



Dakota, 457 

Dallas, Georgia, 79 

Dartmouth College, 148, 410, 412 

Dauphin e Island, 406 

Davis, George, 104 

Davis, Jefferson, 327, 397, 405 

Davis Plantation, 84 

Davis, W. H. H., Gen., 162 

Dayton, Capt., 243 

Dayton, L. M., 38 

De Charmes, L/ieut., 192 

Deer Creek, 33, 34, 36 

Dehon, Theodore, 156 

Dehon, William, 177 

Delaware College, 285 

Delhi, La., 70, 311, 312 



Democratic Party, 10 

Dennis, E. S., Gen., 314, 316, 341 

Dennison, Gov., 11, 159, 367 

Department of the GiUf, 134 

De Quincey, 255 

Des Arc BluflF, 32 

Des Moines, steamer, 98 

De Soto, I/a., 301 

Detroit, Mich., 284 

Diadem, steamer, 98 

Diana, steamer, 90 

District of West Tennessee, 122 

Dix, W., Mayor, 318 

Donaldson, 141 

Dorchester, Lieut., 54 

Dorchester, Mass., 2, 236 

Dorsheimer, Wm., Hon., 155, 156, 

164, 461, 463 
Douglas, Stephen A., 10 
Drake, Geo. B., A.A.G., loi 
Duff, Col., 343, 370 
Duncan, Mrs., 317 
Durand's, 141 
Dutch Gap Canal, 365 
Du Val Bluff, 32 
Du Val, Gov., 402 
Dwight, Gen., 320 



B 



Eagle, steamer, 36 

Easley, Robert, 104 

Eastport, ironclad, no, 118, 136 

Bastport, Miss., 143, 144,374,376- 

379 
Eaton, Asa, Rev., 150 
E. C. Aiken's, 141 
Edwards' Depot, 40 
Edwards' Ferry, 40 
Edwards' Station, 46, 47 
Eldridge, Hamilton N., Col., 40, 

46, 54 
Elgin's Ford, 172 
Eliot, John, Rev., 2 
Ellison, R. H., Maj., 83 
Emerald, steamer, 98, 102, 103 
Emory, Gen., 94, 95 
Enoch, John, Lieut., 54 
Enterprise, Miss., 354 
Erie, Lake, 275 
Essex, gunboat, 359 
Ewing, "Gen., 307, 314 
Ewing, Hugh, Gen., 34, 39-41,43, 

44, 50, 52 
Ewing, Thos., Gen., 156, 163 
Ewi7ig, IV. L., steamer, 98 



48o 



hidex 



Fairy, flagship, 375 

Fanars, Mrs., 322 

Faneui], Peter, 2, 3 

Fannie McBurnie, steamer, 184 

Farragut, Admiral, 87, 316, 319 

Fayette Co., Ohio, 179 

Fifteenth Army Corps, 30, 34, 36- 

38, 46, 48, 55, 57, 60, 65, 79, 258, 

264, 266, 268, 271, 274, 278, 279, 

283, 285, 307, 340 
Fisher, C. W., Col., 19, 46, 53, 55, 

210, 214, 218, 236, 277, 294 
Forbes, Capt., 316 
Forrest, Gen., C. S. A., 142 
Forsyth, George, Gen., 460 
Fort Abercrombie, 457 
Fort Blakely, 145 
Fort De Russy, 89, 93, 116, 121, 

138, 160, 317, 357, 359 
Fort Donaldson, 184, 187, 208, 371 
Fort Gaines, 145, 380-383, 385-387, 

391, 392, 395, 401 
Fort Harrison, 365 
Fort Henry, 13, 187 
Fort Hyndman, 32, 258 
Fort Jackson, 81 
Fort McAllister, 79 
Fort Monroe, 365 
Fort Pickering, 23, 240 
Fort Powhatan, 365 
Fort St. Philip, 87 
Fourth Wisconsin Regiment, iii 
France, policy of, 224 
Franklin, Gen., 87, 94, 95, 114, 

134 
Franklin, Tenn., 142 
French and Indian War, i 
Friar's Point, 35 



Galveston, 87, 88, 114, 138 

Galveston Bay, 138 

Gardner, Francis, Gen., C.S.A., 

320 
Garrard, K., Gen., 143, 377, 378 
Gazelle, dispatch boat, 103 
George Gurnage's, 141 
Georgetown, Ohio, 331 
Georgia, 125, 146 
Germantown, Tenn., 22S 
Gillespie, W. C. B., Lieut., 90 
Gillett, Capt., 54 
Goodman, H. Earnest, Col., 155, 

156, 162 



Gordon, Gen., 458 

Governor Wells's Plantation, 121 

Graham, George, 193 

Grand Army of the Republic, 45, 
458 

Grand Bayou, 141 

Grand Ecore, 89, 96-98, loi, 105, 
106, 108-110, 113-117, 119, 125, 
126, 133, 134, 140, 141 

Grand Gulf, 38, 46, 78, 214, 317 

Grand Lakes, 316 

Granger, Gen., 385 

Grant, U. S., Gen., 13, 14, 16, 24- 
26, 29, 30, 32, 33, 38, 40, 42, 44, 
48, 50, 55, 56, 64, 65, 68, 69-75, 
80, 81, 85-87, 94, 124, 149, 152- 
154, 156, 159-161, 196, 262, 269, 
279-282, 303-309, 311, 314-316, 
319, 322, 323, 326, 330-337, 340, 
343, 344, 353, 356, 362, 365, 370- 
372, 385, 386, 409, 410, 441, 458, 
460, 467, 468 

Grant's Pass, Alabama, 380 

Grappe's Bluff, 141 

Grave Yard Road, 47, 48 

Great Britain, Policy of, 241 

Gregg, David McM., Gen., 40, 
162 

Green Co., Ohio, 78, 142 

Green, Gen., C. S. A., 94, 102, 
103, 106-109, 113, 117-120 

Green, W. D., A. A. G., 42, 43, 53 

Grenada, 29 

Gresham, Walter Q., Gen., 83 

Grey, Chief Justice, 45S 

Grier, Capt., U. S. N., 92, 359 

Grierson, B. H., Gen., 75, 76 

Groce, John H., Capt., 43 

Groesbeck, John B., 6, 214 

Grover, Gen., 93, 95 

Guatemala, 451 

Gulf, Dept. of, 77 

Gunntown, Miss., 142 

Gwin, Ex-U. S. Senator, 435 



H 



Haines's Bluff, 32, 33, 39, 72, 92, 

159, 277, 304 

Hall, Lyons, Col., 83 

Halleck, H. W., Gen., 12, 15, 21, 
23, 24, 56, 61, 85, 87, 122, 184, 
192, 211, 214, 226, 240, 308 

Hamburg road, 19 

Hamilton Co., Ohio, 5, 10, 78, 151 

Hamilton, Gen., 24 



Index 



481 



Hamilton, steamer, 98 
Haucock, Gen., 149, 152, 154, 155, 

367, 461 
Hanover, 148 
Hard Times, 46 
Hardee, Gen., 196 
Harriet Lane, steamer, 92, 358 
Hastings, steamer, 90, 97-100, 

102, 104, 109, 359 
Havana, 148, 316, 381 
Hayes, President, 458 
Hay ward. Col., 437 
Heffeiman, Maj., 53 
Helena, Ark., 25 
Henderson's Hill, 93, 116, 129 
Henrie, Daniel Drake, 6 
Hernando, 24 
Hicks, Stephen, Col., 9, 12 
Hill's Plantation, 35 
Hindinan, steamer, 103, 104, iii 
Hoadly, George, Hon., i 
Holabird, Col., 134 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 458 
Holmesburg, Phila., 156 
Holly Springs, 22-24, 216, 218, 

222, 225, 228 
Hope, Dr., 145 
Horton, Mr., 171 
Hough, J., Capt., 105, 122, 143, 

144, 375, 417 
Hood, J. B., Gen., 142, 374, 376 
Houston, D. C, Maj,, 88, 104 
Houston, W. K., Capt., 104, 138 
Hudson River, 461 
Humphreys, T. W., Col., 89, 104, 

121 
Hurlbut, Stephen A., Gen., 83, 

84, 236, 395 
H. Tessier's, 141 
Hyde Park, New York, 461 



Iberville, steamer, 99, 100, 105 
Illinois, 7, 10, 261 ; Governor of, 
24 ; 40th infantry-, 12 ; 41st in- 
fantry, 81, 89, 121 ; 49th infan- 
try, 128 ; 55th infantry, 12, 17, 
21, 30, 31, 48, 52, 53,. 62, 196, 
203, 204, 252, 263 ; 72d infantry, 
81; 8ist infantry, 89, 121 ; Vol- 
unteers. 95th infantry, 99, 121 ; 
95th infantry, 81, 89, 107 ; Vol- 
unteers, 117th infantry, 128; 
127th infantry, 31, 46, 48-50, 53, 
54, 252, 261, 263 



Indiana, Governor of, 24 ; 3d in- 
fantry, 128; 83d infantry, 31, 
34, 46, 48-50, 53, 60, 252, 261, 263 
Indianola, gunboat, 87, 35S 
Iowa, 6th infantry, 12 ; 3d in- 
fantry, 89, 90, 121 



Jackson, James, Hon., 245 
Jackson, Miss., 39, 79, 249, 327; 

port, 40; railroad, 47 
James River, 364, 365 
Jamestown Island, 365 
Jane, Capt., 342 
Jenkinson's Ferry, 112 
Jolui Raine, steamer, 90 
John Warner, steamer, 99, 103, 

104 
Johnson, President, 149, 397, 414, 

454 
Johnston, Albert Sidney, Gen., 

14, 16, 327 
Johnston, Joseph, Gen., C. S. A., 

71, 72, 77, 146, 147, 306 
Jonesborough, 79 
Jones, Thomas Kilby, 2, 3, 349 
Jordan, Dominicus, i 
Julia, steamer, 334 

K 

Kennesaw Mountain, 79 
Kentucky, 7 
Kilby, Thomas, 2, 3 
Kili, Capt., 49 
Knoxville, 79 
Kossuth, 167 



Lacy, y. H., steamer, 98 
Lafayette, Tenn., 218, 228 
La Grange, 23, 217, 218, 228 
Lake Cannisnia, 97 
Lake St. Joseph, 302 
Larkensville, La., 79 
Lathrop, William, 35 
Laura, steamer, 390 
Lawrenceburg, 252, 263 
Lee, Admiral, 376, 377 
Lee, A. L., Gen., 94, 95, 136, 359 
Lee, R. E., Gen., C. S. A., 146, 

240,386 
Le Fevre, Benj., Gen., 163 



482 



Index 



Legee, Gen., 313 

Ivcibrant, Henry, 55 

Le Vert, Madame, 397-401 

Lexingt07i, gunboat, 102, 103, 

107, 120 
Lexington, steamer, 16 
Liberty, steamer, 98 
Lick Creek, 13, 163 
Liddell, Genl., 103, 105, 392 
Ivightburn, J. A. J., Gen., 64, 65, 

68, 81, 298, 308 
Lincoln, Abraham, 10, 160, 404 
Little Rock, 30, 79, 93, 112, 139 
Logan County, Ohio, 7, 78, 79 
Loggy Bayou, 97, loi, 105, 112, 

138, 140 
Longfellow, Professor, 459 
Lossing, B. J., 105 
Louisiana, 38, 264 
Louisiana Military Academy, 130 
Louisville, gunboat, 317 
Louisville, Ky., 79, 379 
Loyal Legion, military order of, 

152-154, 157, 158, 162, 460 
Lucas, Col., 127 
Lukin, Jas. H., Lieut., 90 
Lynde, 2 
L5i;le, William, Gen., 339 



M 



Macaulay, Thos. Babington, 275 
Macocheek, Ohio, 7, 2S7, 362 
Macon Bayou, 33 
Madama Bessiers, 141 
Madisonville, Miss., 354 
Mad River, 8 

Magnolia, steamer, 280, 283 
Magruder, Gen., 85, 86, 135, 138, 

139 
Major, James P., Gen., 117, 118 
Malmborg, Oscar, Col., 17, 31, 46, 

51, 53» 55, 197 
Manassas Gap, 169 
Mauley, Master, 331 
Mansfield, 94, 97, loi 
Marchant, A., Major, C. S. A., 320 
Marksville, 91, 121, 138, 357-359 
Maron, Rodney, Col., 12 
Mars, steamer, 98 
Matamoras, 316 
Mather, Rev. Cotton, 2 
Mather, Rev. Increase, 2 
Matthews, Stanlej^, 5, 6 
Maurice, Rev. Fr. C. P., 156, 465 
Maury, Gen., C. S. A., 389 
McArthur, Gen., 143, 341, 378 



McCharles, 2d Inf. O. V., 172 
McClellan, George B., Gen., 23, 

215, 218, 224, 240 
McClernand, Gen., 22, 24, 29-32, 

38, 44, 56, 130, 256, 269, 307 
McCook, Alex. McD., Col., 19, 

20, 178 
McCook, Daniel, Judge, 173 
McCook, Ewin S., 173 
McCook, Mrs., 170 
McCoy, James C, Capt., 243, 282 
McCullough, Arabella, 9 
McCullough, Elizabeth, Budd, 8 
McCullough, William Budd, 8 
McCullough, William, Col., 8 
McDonald, C, Capt., 36 
McDowell, J. A., Col., 12 
McGill, George W., 163 
McGowan, Lieut. U. S. N., 155 
Mcllvaine, Bishop, 171 
McKee, George C, Major, 87 
McKinnon, Rev. Fr. S. J., 156 
McLean, Washington, 410 
McMahon, Thos., Lieut.-Col., 69, 

81 
McPherson, James B., Gen., 15, 
24, 44, 48, 50, 55, 56, 81, 83, 84, 
89, 92, 93, 124, 142, 146, 160, 
336, 342, 353, 362, 369, 386 
Meade, George G., Gen., 366 
Meade's Station, 366 
Memphis, 23-25, 57, 79, 122, 123, 
142, 215, 217, 218, 220, 328-230, 
240, 242-245, 247, 248, 250, 256, 
264, 275, 286, 328, 330, 332, 341 
Merchant, Clarke, 155 
Meridian, 83, 84, 160, 163 
Meteor, gunboat, 99, 102, 104 
Mexico, 85 
Miami River, 275 
Miles, Col., C. S. A., 320 
Miliken's Bend, 25, 29, 39, 46, 69, 
160, 264, 303, 304, 308', 310, 314 
Mindil, Geo. W., Gen., 155 
Mitchel, Ormsby M., Gen., 6, 11, 

Mississippi Division, 124 
Mississippi 5th Infantry, C. S. A., 

45 
Missionary Ridge, 79 
Mississippi River, 33, 34, 116, 122, 

125, 130, 242, 253, 264, 270, 279, 

280, 286, 321, 322, 327, 328, 330 
Mississippi, State of, 244 
Missouri ist Artillery, 90, 121, 

122, 129, 140 
Missouri 5th Infantry, C. S. A., 45 



Index 



483 



Missouri 6th Infantry, 247 
Missouri 8th Infantry, 21, 31, 43, 

53, 267 
Mobile, 85, 86, 124, 131, 145, 147, 

160, 215, 316, 327, 329, 330, 380, 

381, 383, 384, 386-388, 390, 397, 

403, 406-408, 473 
Mobile Bay, 147, 380, 387 
Mobile & Ohio R.R., 142 
Monroe, 138 
Monroe, Louisiana, 312 
Monroe, Major, 198 
Monsouri, 140 
Montgomery, 141 
Moore, I. T., Capt., 49 
Moore, J. B., Col.. 83, 89, 98-100, 

105, 121, 122, 140, 142-144. 375 
Moore's Plantation, 121 
Moreauville, 91, 121, 357 
Morgan, George W., Gen., 26, 27, 

244 
Morse, Alex. Porter, Capt., 

C. S. A., 118 
Morton Battery, 12 
Moscow Bend, 22 
Moscow, Miss. , 23, 320, 328 
Mott, S. R., Lieut.-Col., 54, 55 
Moulton, C. W., 163 
Moulton, Gen., 138, 139 
Mouth of Cane River, 141 
Mower, Jos. A., Gen., 89, 91, 93, 

114, 116, 120, 126, 127, 129, 357, 

358 
Muddy Bayou, 34 
MuUany, J. R. Madison, Capt., 385 
Mungen, William, Col., 12, 15 
Murfreesboro, 365 
Muskingham River, 275 
Myers, Lieut.-Col., 35, 54 



N 



Nale, John H., Lieut.-Col,, 83, 89, 
92, 121 

Napoleon, 32 

Nashville, 120, 142, 146, 373, 379 

Natchez, 76, 77, 81, 145, 160, 315, 

317, 318, 321-323, 328, 330, 334, 

337-339. 341, 342-345, 347, 350, 

353 
Natchitoches, 87, 94, 116, 126, 

127, 129, 140 
Navy, Secretary of, 29 
Nelson, Gen., 197 
Neosho, gunboat, 102, 103, 11 1 
Newburyport, Mass., i 
New Carthage, 38 



New Falls City, steamer, 97, loi 
New Hope Church, 79 
Newman, Cardinal, 469 
New Orleans, 36, 77, 81, 140, 141, 

145, 185, 316, 328, 330, 334-336, 

380-383, 406, 408 
Newport News, 365 
Niblet's Bluff, 87 
Nicholson, John P., Col., 155, 

156, 162 
Nickojack Creek, 79 
Nine-Mile Bend, loi 
Nineteenth Army Corps, 93, 94, 

105, 115, 126 
No. ij, steamer, 103 
Norman's, 141 
Noyes, Senator, 458 



O 



Ohio, 5, 7, 10, 261, 265, 275 ; river, 
3, 12, 275; 5th Cavalry, 222; 
44th Infantry, 10, 11 ; 46th In- 
fantry, 12 ; 48th Infantry, 13 ; 
53d Infantry, 12 ; 54th Infantry, 
12, 18, 19, 21, 28-31, 36, 46, 49, 
52, 54, 60, 61, 63, 66, 78, 79, 158, 
163, 196, 203, 204, 249, 252, 258, 
260. 263, 275 ; 57th Infantry, 12, 
15, 21, 30, 31, 34, 36, 46, 49, 52, 
204, 252, 263 ; 70th Infantry, 13 ; 
71st Infantrj', 12, 16, 196; 72d 
Infantry, 12 ; 77th Infantry, 12 ; 
83d Infantry, 30 ; Society of 
New York, 162 

Okalona, 84 

O. K. Landing, 141 

Olarte, Vincent, Gen., 417 

Opolousas, 87, 13S, 359 

Osage, gunboat, 102-104, 106, no, 
III, 120, 

Otie, Bishop, of Memphis, 249 

Otis, Harrison Grey, 459 ; Mrs., 



Paducah, Ky., 12, 13, 59, 78, 163, 
181, 186-188. 228, 284, 369, 377, 

379 
Page, John, 2 
Palmer, Admiral, 431 
Palmer, Commodore, 318, 321 
Panama, 148, 149, 415-420, 422, 

425, 429, 431, 433, 438-441, 445- 

448 



484 



Index 



Panama, Bay of, 433 

Panama, Isthmus of, 2 

Parke, Gen., 367 

Parker, Gen., 455 

Parsons, Gen., 117 

Pea Ridge, 13, 199 

Pearl River, 354 

Pemberton, John C, Gen., 38, 72, 

298 
Pendleton, George H., 6 
Penn Monthly, 4 
Perkins, Judge, 302 
Perry, W. McKay, 45 
Petersburg, Va., 366, 385 
Piatt, Abraham Saunders, Gen., 10 
Piatt, Benj. M., Judge, 7, 8, 297 
Piatt, Donn, 7, 171 
Piatt, Elizabeth Barnett, 8, 172 
Pierce, P'ranklin, 9, 192 
Pierce's, 141 
Pittsburg, gunboat, no 
Pittsburg Landing, 14, 16, 17, 29, 

78, 229 
Placquemine, 141 
Pleasant Grove, 95 
Pleasant Hill, 94, 95, 102, 106, 

113, 114, 116, 121, 131, 135, 140 
Plymouth Rock, 248 
Point Lookout, 365 
Polleys, J. W., Lieut.-Col., 89, 

121 
Pontotoc, 84 
Pope, Gen., 204 
Port Gibson, 38, 40 
Port Hudson, 26, 71, 72, 75, 76, 

III, 314, 315, 318, 320-323 
Port Raymond, 40 
Porter, David D., Rear Admiral, 

25-27, 29-32, 34, 35, 56, 69, 

72, 73, 89, 90, 92-94, 97, 98, loi, 

106, 107, 109-113, 119, 120, 124, 

133, 137, 160, 282, 283, 315-317, 

323, 357, 358, 363 
Post Office Department, 168 
P, Rachels', 141 
Prairie Rose, steamer, 189 
Preble Co., O., 78, 179 
Prentiss, B. M., Gen., 16, 19, 196 
Price, despatch boat, 319 
Price, Gen., 406 
Price, Stirling, Gen., C. S. A., 94, 

138, 139 
Providence Lake, 33 
Pugh, Col., 89 
Pugh, George E., 6, 343 
Purcell, J. B., Rt. Rev., 8, 156, 

469 



Q 



Quebec, 412, 413 

Queen 0/ the IVest, steamer, 316 

Quitman, Miss, 354 



R 



Ramsey, Governor, 241 

Randolph, John, 348 

Ransom, Gen., 34-36, 48, 52, 76, 

78, 308, 369, 455 
Rawlins, John A. Gen., 42, 64, 

77, 94, 95, 323, 368, 401 
Raymond, Miss., 39, 46 
Read, Abner, 322 
Red River, 33, 86, 87, 88, 90, 93- 

97, III, 112, 116-119, 121, 124- 

126, 130-133, 137-141, 144, 146, 

160, 242, 357-359 
Red River Expedition, 357, 379 
Red River Landing, 116 
Regular Army, 13th Infantrv, 47, 

50 
Resaca, 79 
Reuben White's, 141 
Revolutionary War, 8 
Rhode Island, Governor of, 171 
Rice, A. v., Col., 34, 46, 51, 53, 

54, 204 
Richmond, Va., 46, 79, 94, 224, 

310, 311, 313, 384-386, 392 
Riddle, Col., 366 
Rig.?iu, Jolia, Col., 70, 343 
Rio Grande, 88 
Riverside, N. Y., 156 
Roberts, Lord, Field Marshal, 268 
Rob Roy, steamer, 99, 102-104, 

109 
Rocky Springs, 46 
Rodgers, Mrs., 317 
Rogall, Capt., 193 
Rogers, A. W., Lieut.-Col., 90, 

121 
Rolling Fork, 34, 159 
Root, Edward E., Lieut., 54 
Rosecrans, Gen., 143, 245, 262, 

278, 303, 469 
Rousseau, Gen., 20, 201 
Runkle, Benj. P., Gen., 193 
Russell House, 21, 66, 246, 333 



Sabine Pass, 87, 138 ; cross roads, 
94, 95, 106, 112, 114, 119, 135, 
139 ; river, 138 



Index 



485 



Sacred Heart Convent, 148 
Sandusky River, 275 
San Francisco, 431, 438 
Sanger, Maj., 243 
Sanitary Commissioners, 263 
San Mateo, Cal, 436 
Sargent, L. M., 2, 3 
Savannah, Tenn., 188, 190 
Sawyer, Gen,, 374 
Scammon, Gen., 143, 469 
Schenck, Robert, Gen., 171 
Schmidt, Godfried Christian, Dr., 

i> 3 
Schiller, 299 
Schofield, Gen., 143 
Scioto, 275 

Scott, Thos. A., Col., 20 
Scott, Wm. L., Capt., 89, 140 
Scott, Winfield, Gen., 170, 171 
Seeds, Lieut., 285 
Selfridge, Capt., 103, no 
Selfridge, Thos. O., Lieut., 106, 

107 
Seventeenth Army Corps, 81, 82, 
89, 90, 92, 97-101, no, 114, 121- 
123, 124, 331, 338, 342,355 
Seward, Secretarj', 148 
Seymour, Horatio, 149, 441 
Shaw, W. T., Col., 91 
Sheppard, I. H., Col., 70 
Sherer, J. L., 55 
Sheridan, Phil., Gen., 406, 460 
Sherman, John, Senator, 58, 59, 68 
Sherman, Mrs., 68, 247-246, 257, 

331 
Sherman, W. T., Gen., 7, 12, 13, 
15, 19-23, 25, 27-32, 34, 36, 37- 
39, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55-6i, 
64-66, 68, 73, 78, 79, 83-85, 87- 
89, 94, 109, 112, 113, 119, 120, 
122, 124, 125, 130, 131, 137, 142, 
146, 148, 159-161, 163, 183, 184, 
186, 190-195, 197, 201-204, 206, 
229, 234-236, 239, 243-245, 247- 
249, 251, 256, 260, 267-269, 271- 
276, 279-284, 289, 290, 298, 303- 
305, 327, 333, 340, 341, 353, 354, 
356, 362, 365, 369, 374, 386, 411, 
412, 455, 459, 460, 469 
Shiloh, 13, 21, 22, 61, 63, 66, 78, 
159, 163, 191, 193-195, 243, 246, 
247, 275, 284, 333,374 
Shirk, Capt., U. S. N., 16, 243 
Shreveport, 87-89, 93, 94, 96, 98, 

112, 114, 132, 135, 137-141 
biLver Moon, steamer, 363 
Silver Wave, 36 



Simmesport, 90, 91, 112, 116, 130, 

.135, 357, 359 
Sioux Ctty, steamer, 98, 104 
Sixteenth Army Corps, 83, 89, 94, 
97, 107, 114, 122, 127, 128, 137 ' 
Smith, A. J., Gen., 26, 28, 46, 47, 
89, 90, 92-98, 104, 107, iio- 
114, 120-125, 127, 129-131, 133, 
138, 142-144, 252, 356, 357, 359, 
362, 374-376, 378, 410 
Smith, C. F., Gen., 16, 192 
Smith, E. Kirby, Gen., C. S. A., 
86, 96, 112, 135, 147, 178, 208, 
244, 384, 395 
Smith, Fliza Bicker, 8, 51, 68, 80, 

150 
Smith, Elizabeth Budd, 9, 186 
Smith, Fannie, Mrs., 192 
Smith, George, i, 5, 6, 8 
Smith, Giles A., Gen., 29, 30, 34, 
40, 42-45, 47, 48, 52, 53, 65, 267, 
314 
Smith, J. Condict, Capt., 243 
Smith, Marshall, Col. C. S. A., 

320 
Smith, Morgan L., Gen., 20, 21, 
24-26, 65, 204, 208, 234, 235, 237, 
251, 267 
Smith, Mrs., 2 

Smith, Theodore Dehon, 465 
Smith, W. Sooy, Gen., 83, 84 
Snake Creek, 13 
Society of the Army of the Ten- 

nessee, 455 
South7uester, steamer, 98 
Spanish Fort, 145, 384, 386 
Spooner, Benj. J., Col., 41, 46, 49, 

52, 54, 252, 277 
Sprague, Governor, 171 
Springfield, 93, 97, 107, 108; 

Landing, 105, 108 
Stanley, Gen., 143 
Stanton, Ewin M., 15, 23, 68, 

169, 238 
Steadman, Col., C. S. A., 320 
Steele, Frederic, Gen., 26, 42, 44, 
47, 50, 86, 88, 89, 93, 94, 112, 
122, 138, 139 
Steele's Bayou, 33, 34, 282 
Stewart, Senator, 439 
St. Joseph, La., 317, 322 
St. Louis, 124, 145, 185 
St. Maurice, 141 
St. Paul, Minn., 455, 456 
Stockton, Jos., Lieut. -Col., 81 
Stone, Gen., 320 
Stone, James Kent, 471 



486 



Index 



Storer, Bellamy, Judge, 115 
Strickle, A. G., Capt., 69 
Stuart, David, Gen., 12, 17-20, 26, 
27, 30. 31. 34, 35. 37, 62, 63, 66, 
163, 184, 192, 194, 201-204, 206, 
252, 257, 264, 269, 280, 283, 353 
Sturgis, S. D., Gen., 142 
Sullivan, Peter J., Col., 13 
Sunflower River, 32 
Sunny South, steamer, 249, 250, 

254, 264 
Swallow, steamer, 279 



Tallahatchie River, 22, 33, 249 
Taylor, Lieut., 5th Ohio Cavalry, 

243 
Taylor, Maj., 48, 243, 255 
Taylor, Richard, Gen., C. S. A., 

70, 94, 96, 117, 118, 138, 139, 309, 

311-313, 395 
Taylor, W. H. H., Col., loi, 243 
Teche Co., Texas, 87 
Tennessee River, 374-376, 378 
Tensas River, 33, 310 
Terry, Gen., 369 
Texas, 86, 87, 94, 139, 147, 185 
Thayer, 42 

Thielmann's Cavalry, 54 
Third Div. Detach. Army of the 

Tennessee, 143, 144 
Thirteenth Army Corps, 25, 30, 

38. 93, 94, 129. 130 
Thirteenth Regulars, 307 
Thirty-seventh Ohio Volunteers, 

10 
Thomas E. Tutt, steamer, 98, 99 
Thomas, George H,, Gen., 142, 

211, 290, 343, 369, 37S, 379,460 
Tiemayer, Lieut., 102, 121, 122, 

140 
Tiger Island, 141 
Tod, Governor of Ohio, 223 
Torresdale, Philadelphia, Pa., 148 
Townsend, Capt., 359 
Trelawney Papers, i 
Trinity, 138 

Trogden, Howell G., Private, 43 
Trumbull, Chaplain, U. S. V., 155, 

162 
Tullis, James, Lieut.-Col., 121 
Tupelo, 142 
Tupper, Gen., 43 
Tupper, N. I., Col., 40 
Tuttle, Gen., 42 
Twelfth U. S. Infantry, 12 



U 



UlflFers, H, A., Lieut., 75 
Ulm, Germany, i 
Union Army, 11 
Union Club, Memphis, 317 
Union Defence Committee, 177 
Union, Federal, 10 
United States Marshal, 9 
United States Senate, 9, 37 
Universe, steamer, 99, 104 
Upton, Captain, 317 
Urbana, Ohio, 455 

V 

Vallandigham, 343, 441 

Venables, Richard S., Captain, 
loi 

Vicksburg, 24-26, 29, 33, 34, 38- 
42, 45, 56, 61, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71, 
72, 76, 78-80, 82-85, 90, 92, 93, 
113, 116, 121-123, 142, 159, 163, 
242, 249, 251, 261, 262, 264, 266, 
277, 279, 28T, 283, 291, 292, 294- 
296, 298, 300, 306, 307, 309, 311, 
314, 315, 317, 319, 320, 322, 323, 

327-330, 333, 334, 336, 339, 340, 
342-344, 346, 353, 354, 357, 367, 
384, 387, 459 

Vicksburg Papers, 272 

Virgin, H. H., Maj., 121 

Virginia, 124 

Vivian, steamer, 390 

W 

Walker, J. G., Gen., 40, 69, 91, 358 

Wallace, W. H. L., Gen., 16 

Walnut Hills, 68, 297, 299, 305 

Walter, Eliza Bicker, 2, 150 

Walter, Nehemiah, 4 

Walter, William, 150 

Ward, Lyman, Col., 90, 121, 122, 

140 
Ward, W. C, Col., 91,98-TOi, 105, 

127, 358 
Warner, William, Maj., 83, 90, 140 
Warren County, 8 
Warren, Gen., 367 
Warren ton, La., 293 
Washburne, C. C, Gen., 122, 123, 

142 
Washington City, 9, 10, 24, 29, 59, 

79, 143, 144, 146, 147, 152, 167, 

257, 379, 380, 397, 414, 454, 459 
Washington, George, Gen., 248, 

467 



Index 



487 



Washita River, 33, 138 

Waterloo, 141 

Water Oaks, point of, 19 

Webster, Daniel, 411 

Weitsel, Gen., 366 

West, Gen., 117 

West Liberty, Ohio, 7 

West Point, 332, 342, 356 

Wetmore, John H., Capt., 90, 140 

405 
White, G. M., Capt,, 54 
White Lake, 105 
White River, 30, 258 
White, Sergeant, 278, 279 
White's Station, 228 
Williams, Capt., 294 
Willis, James, Lieut. -Col., 89 
Willow Point, 141 
Willow Springs, 46, 301 
Wilson's Landing, 365 
Wilson, Lieut., 173, 384 
Winslow, Edward F., Col., 83 
Wisconsin 14th Infantry, 81, 89, 

90, 121, 142 ; 17th Infantry, 81 ; 

33d Infantry, 89, 90, 121 
Wolfenbuttel, Germany, i 



Wolf River, 23, 220, 249 
Woodford, transport boat, 136 
Woodward College, 158 
Woodward High School, 5 
Woodward, Paul, 104 
Wordin, Maj., C. S. S., 
Worthington, Thos., Col., 12, 224, 
235 



Yazoo City, 282 

Yazoo River, 25, 26, 32, 33, 36, 83, 
160, 250, 264, 275,277, 291, 292, 
304, 314, 346, 352-354, 372, 377 

Yellow Bayou, 116, 121, 140 

Yellow Creek, 13 

Yellow Springs, Ohio, 68, 69, 142 

Yeoman, Capt., 258, 259, 263 

Young's Point. 32, 34, 36, 39, 60, 
61, 266, 268, 271, 279, 282, 284- 
286, 288-292, 301, 316, 377, 388 



Zouave Regiment, 285 




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